A E Hotchner was a close friend of Hemingway over many years and during that time Hemingway often opened his heart to Hotchner, especially with regard to the women in his life. This book is an account of many of their conversations, culled from notes Hotchner took at the time plus audio recordings. This gives the account authenticity, certainly, as the story is apparently narrated in Hemingway’s own words, long passages inside quotation marks, which however do not sound like actual conversations, and I can’t help feeling they have been sanitised for publication. There’s little of the spontaneity you would get in actual conversations. Nevertheless, it’s an intriguing and entertaining book, marred only by the fact that Hotchner seems in thrall to his subject and however badly Hemingway acts it’s all concealed behind a “poor misguided and put-upon man” veneer. Nothing in the memoir persuades me to soften my feelings about Hemingway, although I certainly enjoyed the book, and if I didn’t learn anything new, it is however always interesting to hear somebody else’s point of view.