This month, Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger Diane Madsen. Diane is the author of the DD McGil Literati Mysteries, a series of novels that link true incidents in the histories of famous authors with current-day mysteries. She was our featured author on June 26, 2012.
Once your book is published and on the shelves, you
go on to the next one. But sometimes one
of your books rears up and takes you places you never envisioned. That’s what happened to me after Hunting
for Hemingway, my second DD McGil Literati Mystery, was published. The extensive research I did for the book
really paid off in unexpected fashion.
It took me to Cuba.
I lived in
Hemingway’s boyhood hometown of Oak Park for 24 years, and was also an
English Major (eeekk), so the forces of the universe undoubtedly dictated
some interest on my part in Ernest Hemingway and fueled my research. Parts of that research involved Hemingway’s
Corona #3 typewriter - the one his first wife, Hadley Richardson, gave him as a
present on his 22nd birthday.
After finishing my mystery novel, I wrote an article on the importance
of that Corona typewriter and the importance of typing itself to Hemingway’s
career as a young journalist and fiction writer. That article was published in the Spring 2013
issue of The Hemingway Review, and
the Review kindly chose a photo of a
Corona #3 for the cover!
As a result, I was asked to speak at the
International Hemingway Colloquium, held in Havana, Cuba last June. I realized that my mystery novel had been the
trigger (as we crime novelists say) that impelled this adventure into action.
Hemingway, who spent almost 20 years in Cuba, loved
the island and its people. When he won
the Nobel Prize in 1954 for The Old Man and the Sea, he dedicated it to the
fishermen of Cojimar and to the Cuban people.
The medal is housed at the El Cobre Sanctuary, located just outside Santiago
de Cuba. It was stolen in the 1980s,
but Castro put out a notice warning the thief to return the medal within 72 hours or face the consequences. It was returned but is no longer on display.
I did find that Cuba has 2 different pesos minted in Hemingway's honor – one a portrait and another a fishing scene with him aboard his
boat, the Pilar. All the Cubans we met
on the street knew about Hemingway and expressed excitement to meet people from
all over the world at the Colloquium.
Hemingway’s former home, the Finca Vigia (Lookout
Farm), is now a museum, maintained for
the past 53 years just as it was in 1960 when Hemingway left for the States,
never to return. The Finca, with the
help and cooperation from various organizations, had gotten some needed
repairs, and on my visit, it was in wonderful condition. It looked as if Hemingway had just left to go
have one of his favorite Papa Doble rum drinks down at La Floridita. For all of
you who live as I do in South Florida and know all too well the ravages that
just one summer in our tropical climate can do to a property, this was great
news to me. The staff was very
knowledgeable and it was obvious they enjoy caring for this property that
reflects so much of Hemingway’s personality.
I encourage you not to miss visiting this living museum if you get the
opportunity.
On a private tour of the Finca with Director Ada
Rosa Alfonso Rosales, I was able to see up close and personal how Hemingway
lived his life in Cuba and examine what treasures he left. The first thing I noticed was what a prolific
reader he was. There were some 9,000
books scattered throughout the beautiful house.
He only had a few mysteries that I knew of – Sherlock Holmes, Agatha
Christie, John Dickson Carr and Isaac Dinesen – all recorded in the packing
slips of cartons he shipped to Cuba from Key West in 1940.
Hemingway is often thought of as the man’s man who
filled his life with hunting, fishing, boxing, bullfights, and drinking. Indeed
the walls of every room had his mounted trophies of lion, leopard, buffalo,
Impala, and fish, all recently refurbished, Ada Rosa informed me. Then I saw
the other side of Hemingway’s character on the grounds of the Finca where
several small headstones marked the graves of some of his favorite cats and
dogs. He was especially fond of Black Dog, who used to lie on the lesser Kudu
skin on the floor where Hemingway stood - usually barefoot - while he worked.
Visiting Cuba involved obtaining all sorts of
permissions, visas, etc. Fortunately we had a tour director, Scott Schwar,
former President of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, who’d made
over 20 trips and knew all the ins and outs, thus making our journey smooth and
enjoyable. I made many Cuban friends and met many Hemingway scholars while I
was Hunting for Hemingway in Cuba. If I hadn’t written Hunting for
Hemingway, this intriguing opportunity would not have been presented.
More information about Diane Madsen can be found at:
https://twitter.com/DianeMadsen -
Twitter @dianemadsen
https://www.facebook.com/diane.g.madsen
HI Diane -- Fascinating post! I had no idea that Cuba had maintained Hemingway's home there as a museum.
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen. Yes, and his boat, the Pilar, is in dry dock under an enclosure adjacent to the house. There's also the swimming pool, now drained, where his fourth wife, Mary, used to swim naked every morning - and fire the gardner if he peeked. Diane
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