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Autumn in Venice

Ernest Hemingway and His Last Muse

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About this listen

In the fall of 1948 Hemingway and his fourth wife traveled for the first time to Venice, which Hemingway called "a goddam wonderful city." He was a year shy of his 50th birthday and hadn't published a novel in nearly a decade. At a duck shoot in the lagoon he met and fell in love with Adriana Ivancich, a striking Venetian girl just out of finishing school. Di Robilant - whose great-uncle moved in Hemingway's revolving circle of bon vivants, aristocrats, and artists - re-creates with sparkling clarity this surprising, years-long relationship. Hemingway used Adriana as the model for Renata in Across the River and into the Trees, and continued to visit Venice to see her; when the Ivanciches traveled to Cuba, Adriana was there as he wrote The Old Man and the Sea. 

This illuminating story of writer and muse - which also examines the cost to a young woman of her association with a larger-than-life literary celebrity - is an intimate look at the fractured heart and changing art of Hemingway in his 50s.

©2018 Andrea di Robilant (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Art & Literature Authors World Literature Celebrity Italy Funny Heartfelt Literary Biography
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I have read a few Hemingway biographies, yet this was fresh with new angles and perspectives. Concentrating on a ‘love interest’, this book weaves this relationship through the rest of Hemingway’s life. Lots of information on when and how he wrote his major works. Well worth a listen.

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