In her leanly written debut, Miller dramatizes the pivotal months Ernest Hemingway spent in Canada as a reporter for the Toronto Star, imagining how he develops an affinity and quiet admiration for an infamous bank robber, Norman “Red” Ryan, who’s on the lam after a daring prison break from the Kingston Pen.

In 1923, Hemingway and his wife, Hadley, relocate from Paris to Toronto to await the birth of their first child, a move that encompasses multiple regrets on his part. Feeling trapped into impending fatherhood and in a career with a controlling boss who doesn’t allow him a byline, he gets frustratingly bogged down with routine assignments and nonstop travel when he’d much rather be investigating Red’s more exciting trail and developing his own fiction-writing craft. For his part, Red, reveling in his liberty, makes his way from the piney woods near Toronto to various points across the northern United States, holding up banks and accumulating enough wealth to fund an increasingly lavish lifestyle. The leader of his band of outlaws, Red aims to keep their goal focused while his most loyal sidekick, Arthur “Sully” Sullivan, gets distracted by pretty ladies.

Miller’s writing effectively combines the flawed heroes and unsentimental settings of hard-boiled crime fiction with an economical style that creates bold, memorable images of both men and their parallel journeys. Hemingway follows Red’s exploits from afar, researching the background to his case with a librarian’s invaluable help while growing confident in his pursuit of creative freedom whenever his path and Red’s unexpectedly cross. With slangy dialogue and vivid scenes of the raucous 1920s that pop from the page, We Were the Bullfighters makes for a stirring portrait of a young man’s incessant hunger to fulfill his artistic vision.
(Published in the Historical Novels Review, August 2024)

This piece of historical fiction covers the period of Hemingway's life when he worked as a staff writer for the Toronto Daily Star. It merges the story of his personal struggles (feeling trapped in his career and family situation) with that of a notorious convict, Norman "Red" Ryan, whose escape from prison Hemingway has been tasked with reporting on. The book is perfectly fine, it just wasn't for me. Parts of it were exciting but overall I felt the story dragged and I didn't find myself particularly invested in any of the characters. I did enjoy learning a bit more about Hemingway's family life and backstory though, and I can imagine fans of his work would get a lot out of this. Thanks NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the e-ARC!

This book tells the story of Ernest Hemingway in his twenties, married and soon to be a young dad. He left behind a life of freedom, creative writing and freelancing in Paris in order to find regular employment with the Daily Star in Toronto to cater for his young family.

His first assignment is to cover a spectacular prison break by the notorious Red Ryan and he becomes quite obsessed with him. He admires Red’s bravery and boldness, his confidence and defiance, he is fascinated by Red’s readiness to risk everything to be free. This prison break comes at exactly the time when he himself has given up his freedom, when he feels restricted and imprisoned in the circumstances he has created. Hemingway roots for Red, he is on his side and believes that Red deserves his freedom – and bit by bit he starts to believe that if Red can defy the odds and get free, maybe he can too. Hemingway sees Red’s story as an inversion of his own: Red escaped his prison the day he was entering his when he joined the Daily Star. This full-time journalism has imprisoned him, he feels trapped and feels the weight of all his unwritten stories pulling him down. When Red’s escape does not go according to plan, the plan gets adapted. Hemingway feels he needs to adapt his too, his plan has not worked out, it made him unhappy and he needs to escape.

This is an interesting story, well told and based on biographical facts that are skilfully fictionized. I liked it a lot and feel I know a little bit more about an author I admire.

I am grateful to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.