DEAR PAPA

A son’s loving memorial to his famous father.

"The man I knew,” writes Ernest Hemingway’s son Patrick (b. 1928), “tried very hard to be a good family man. I think our correspondence shows he was intimately connected with his wives and his children all his life.” Patrick was the writer’s son with his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, whom he married in 1927; Gregory (Gigi) was born in 1931; and Patrick’s older half brother, Jack (Bumby), was the son of first wife Hadley Richardson. Edited by Patrick’s nephew Brendan Hemingway and grandson Adams, the letters reveal shared enthusiasms for fishing, hunting, African terrain, and rigorous adventure. As a father, Hemingway was doting, solicitous, and demanding. “I wish to hear from you and Giggy and Bumby on the first and the fifteenth of each month throughout the year,” he ordered Patrick. “The letters are not to be hurried, nor sullen, nor forced; but are to be as good letters as you can write at bi monthly intervals.” Some letters betray tensions that Patrick was eager to alleviate. “When I am acting stupid or disrespectful, please tell me and tell me plainly,” he wrote when he was 23. “I am not as talented or interesting as Mr. Giggy, but I want to be a dutiful son to you.” After his mother died in 1951, Patrick wrote from Key West, where he was attending to estate matters: “If you think I am a worthless person, that I am sitting over here loafing, with designs on your property, tell me so, and I will know clearly what I am and make some effort to do better.” Apparently, he did very well. “You were the only brother I had among my sons,” Ernest wrote. “Mr. Bumby admirable but not really intelligent and Mr. Gigi wonderful but always strange.” Later, he added, “I love you always and am very proud of you.”

An intimate glimpse into Hemingway family dynamics.