From Gerald Howard, on Malcolm Cowley, Dos, and EH

In The Insider, his 2025 biography of Malcolm Cowley, Gerald Howard recounts the rift that erupted between Hemingway and John Dos Passos during the Spanish Civil War. Dos Passos spent much vocal effort looking for a missing friend, Jose Robles, who was rumored to have been assassinated by Republican partisans or Soviet operatives who believed he’d been a traitor, given that he came from a family who supported the Franco loyalists. Hemingway urged Dos Passos to keep a lid on it, and toed the Soviet-sponsored line. Cowley stood by Dos Passos, and Howard clearly comes down on Dos Passos’s side and here makes a rather stark summary of the consequences for each of these American writers:

James Lee Burke: Clete

I tore threw James Lee Burke’s recent novel, Clete, yet another gut-wrenching thriller from his long line of novels. (Note to self: Must dig out the interview piece I did with him decades ago.) Note the mention of Joan of Arc here—she becomes a haunting presence throughout the novel.

Tim O’Brien and Hemingway

Hemingway makes frequent appearances in my friend Alex Verson’s new biography of the writer Tim O’Brien, Peace Is a Shy Thing. Here’s a good one that speaks to O’Brien’s conscious wrestling with Hemingway’s legacy.