Review of Hemingway's Daughter
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Review of Hemingway's Daughter
[Following is a volunteer review of "Hemingway's Daughter" by Christine M. Whitehead.]
Hemingway's Daughter is an intriguing fictional biography, in which Christine Whitehead reimagined the life of Ernest Hemingway, one of the American novelists, creating for him an imaginal daughter. So, this novel is about Finley and her father. It is also a novel of growth.
As a teenager and a daughter of a famous writer, Flea, (as she is fondly called by her father) identifies four disturbing realities surrounding her family which she has to grapple with. The most troubling one for her is the negative love/marital pattern - "love always ends for us, and usually, it ends badly". However, Finley is determined to break this negative pattern of love. Another reality which she struggles with is her relationship with her father. According to her, her father is 100 percent reliable 6o percent of the time. Although she agrees that her father loves her, she always tries to find the validation for it. As a young girl, she struggles to establish her own identity outside her father's fame, and she is determined to fulfil her dream career as a trial lawyer- a gender biased kind of career in a post war environment. She had been motivated to the legal profession during the World War ll. But now, after the war, things are different from what she has envisaged; the men are back, and women are no longer considered in the legal profession.
The passsion with which the writer recreated Hemingway's life in this novel is palpable and contagious. Although I have never read anything on Enerst Hermimgway, I was spellbound as I kept turning the pages of the book to know more about this great, nonconformist and famous artist and his daughter. I couldn't help my curiosity, even after reading the novel, that i had to skim through his biographies on the internet. It's really captivating how every aspect of the novel depicts his real life, yet blends with the writer's fictitive imagination.There is no aspect of the novel, except for Finley, which does not portray his real life- his marital/divorce escapades, his career as a writer, and especially his personal and family life.
The most interesting aspect of the novel for me, is the author's creativity in character development. How she was able to create the character of Finley and made her fit into every aspect of the Hemingways is very incredibe. Finley is the only daughter of Ernest Hemingway; her parents had been divorced since after her birth. She shares a strong bond with her father.Although there are aspects of her father's life style which gives her concern,she learns to live with them, since she has no control over them. In the beginningof the novel, she is just a teenager who is a bit unsure of herself and how to really fit into her father's life and fame. She is the first person narrator and the details of every event and other characters in the novel are described from her point of view. So, as you follow her interactions with her father, you learn a lot, not only about Ernest Hemingway,but also about important life lessons - love,forgiveness,family bond,perseverance,fame etc. She is also a very relatable character; her first love experience with Nicholas is so romantic that you want to be part of it, and as this love is cut short, you also want to share in her pain. Her presence in the novel is the force that keeps you glued to the story to the very end. Also, I like how every chapter of the novel is preceded with powerful quotes from different books of Ernest Hemingway- the most quoted book being "The Sun Also Rises"
There is no aspect of this novel that i dislike. The book is also professionally edited, so I rate it 4 out of 4 stars.
I warmly recommend Hemingway's Daughter to every lover of fictional biography, especially to young adults since they will learn a lot from Finley's character.
******
Hemingway's Daughter
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Hemingway's Daughter is an intriguing fictional biography, in which Christine Whitehead reimagined the life of Ernest Hemingway, one of the American novelists, creating for him an imaginal daughter. So, this novel is about Finley and her father. It is also a novel of growth.
As a teenager and a daughter of a famous writer, Flea, (as she is fondly called by her father) identifies four disturbing realities surrounding her family which she has to grapple with. The most troubling one for her is the negative love/marital pattern - "love always ends for us, and usually, it ends badly". However, Finley is determined to break this negative pattern of love. Another reality which she struggles with is her relationship with her father. According to her, her father is 100 percent reliable 6o percent of the time. Although she agrees that her father loves her, she always tries to find the validation for it. As a young girl, she struggles to establish her own identity outside her father's fame, and she is determined to fulfil her dream career as a trial lawyer- a gender biased kind of career in a post war environment. She had been motivated to the legal profession during the World War ll. But now, after the war, things are different from what she has envisaged; the men are back, and women are no longer considered in the legal profession.
The passsion with which the writer recreated Hemingway's life in this novel is palpable and contagious. Although I have never read anything on Enerst Hermimgway, I was spellbound as I kept turning the pages of the book to know more about this great, nonconformist and famous artist and his daughter. I couldn't help my curiosity, even after reading the novel, that i had to skim through his biographies on the internet. It's really captivating how every aspect of the novel depicts his real life, yet blends with the writer's fictitive imagination.There is no aspect of the novel, except for Finley, which does not portray his real life- his marital/divorce escapades, his career as a writer, and especially his personal and family life.
The most interesting aspect of the novel for me, is the author's creativity in character development. How she was able to create the character of Finley and made her fit into every aspect of the Hemingways is very incredibe. Finley is the only daughter of Ernest Hemingway; her parents had been divorced since after her birth. She shares a strong bond with her father.Although there are aspects of her father's life style which gives her concern,she learns to live with them, since she has no control over them. In the beginningof the novel, she is just a teenager who is a bit unsure of herself and how to really fit into her father's life and fame. She is the first person narrator and the details of every event and other characters in the novel are described from her point of view. So, as you follow her interactions with her father, you learn a lot, not only about Ernest Hemingway,but also about important life lessons - love,forgiveness,family bond,perseverance,fame etc. She is also a very relatable character; her first love experience with Nicholas is so romantic that you want to be part of it, and as this love is cut short, you also want to share in her pain. Her presence in the novel is the force that keeps you glued to the story to the very end. Also, I like how every chapter of the novel is preceded with powerful quotes from different books of Ernest Hemingway- the most quoted book being "The Sun Also Rises"
There is no aspect of this novel that i dislike. The book is also professionally edited, so I rate it 4 out of 4 stars.
I warmly recommend Hemingway's Daughter to every lover of fictional biography, especially to young adults since they will learn a lot from Finley's character.
******
Hemingway's Daughter
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: The Elephant Tooth of '95 by Rana Baydoun
