The author of the award-winning Sons of Mississippi now reveals Ernest Hemingway in a wholly new light.

Focusing on the years 1934 to 1961-from Hemingway's pinnacle as the reigning monarch of American letters until his suicide-Paul Hendrickson traces the writer's highs and lows around the one constant in his life during this time: his beloved boat, Pilar. We follow him from Key West to Paris, New York, and Cuba, returning whenever he could to Pilar to exult in the sea, to fish, to drink, to entertain celebrities and friends and seduce women, to be with his children. But as his demons grew in power, we see that Pilar was also where he cursed his critics, saw marriages and friendships dissolve, and tried, in vain, to escape his increasingly diminished capacities. Drawing on previously unpublished material, including interviews with Hemingway's sons, Hendrickson reveals a man of choleric anger nonetheless capable of remarkable generosity, who, even at the very height of his success, was sowing the seeds of his tragic death.

Written with sensitivity and keen perception, Hemingway's Boat is a highly original and invaluable contribution to our understanding of this great American writer, published 50 years after his death.