A Q&A with Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
Cristen and I met while shelving fiction in the Strand Bookstore in New York City. She later moved to London to embark on a several year journey to research her great-grandfather Ernest Hemingway’s most famous haunts. I am so honored to be able to introduce Cristen’s recently released book Ernest’s Way.
-Kathleen Olp
Cristen Hemingway Jaynes is an American author and self-professed wanderer, originally from Seattle. Her first book, The Smallest of Entryways, is a collection of short stories, primarily an exploration of family and addiction. Her recently-published new book, Ernest’s Way: An International Journey Through Hemingway’s Life, is a biography and literary travel guide to the places where her great-grandfather, Ernest Hemingway, lived and worked.
Tell us about your inspiration behind embarking on Ernest’s Way.
Not only did my great-grandfather travel throughout his life, but he took up residence in cities all over the globe. Following my graduation from the MA Creative Writing Programme at Birkbeck, University of London in 2017, I was thinking about my great-grandfather as a citizen of the world and realized there wasn’t a comprehensive book based on his travels. Every year, people embark on self-guided tours of cities like Paris, Madrid, Havana, and Key West that have become known as “Hemingway haunts,” but there wasn’t a comprehensive guide to the cafés, restaurants, and bars he frequented in these locales. I realized how proud I was that one of the characteristics most associated with Ernest was that of freedom. He was a champion of freedom in action and in mindset, as well as political freedom—freedom of movement, freedom of expression, and freedom from tyranny. Hemingway saw firsthand and wrote about World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II. Once I realized how important the places that Hemingway had been influenced by—and subsequently influenced—were to his life and writing, I knew that I wanted to be the one to write the book that explored those connections.
2. Discuss the research component of this book. Talk us through the different cities you researched and why you chose those particular ones.
Each chapter in Ernest’s Way is a place that represents a formative set of experiences in Hemingway’s life. All of the cities I chose to include in the book feel essential, such as Oak Park & Chicago, where Hemingway spent his youth. Veneto was where my great-grandfather was introduced to war, was seriously wounded, and had his first serious love affair. Paris—where he went to live and write as a newlywed in 1922—was arguably the birthplace, or at least the bloom, of modern literature. Other places I included in the book may not seem as obvious. For instance, Toronto was where Hemingway got his first paid writing job, with Toronto’s Star Weekly. He wrote features for the paper, which gave him a chance to hone his creative skills as well as develop a signature style that was influenced—though not entirely dictated by—the confines of traditional journalism. Star Weekly gave him the income to live in Paris while covering historic events throughout Europe as a foreign correspondent, and the shorthand “cablese” he used to write his telegraphed dispatches for these assignments had a great influence on the economic cadence of his prose. For the heavy influence that Hemingway’s experiences in Toronto had on his writing, I feel that the Toronto chapter is one of the most important in the book. The other places covered include Key West, the island my great-grandparents, Pauline and Ernest, called home; Bimini, where Hemingway really sunk his teeth into big game fishing; Madrid, where he got his first taste of bullfighting, covered the Spanish Civil War as a correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA), and helped with the production of Joris Ivens’ anti-fascist film, The Spanish Earth; Cuba, where Hemingway fell in love with Cuban culture, daiquiris, and wrote The Old Man and the Sea; London, where he took up residence at The Dorchester Hotel during the Second World War and met his fourth wife, Mary Welsh; and Ketchum & Sun Valley, where Hemingway would reclaim his love of the wilderness, find a second “Family,” and say goodbye to the life he loved so much.
3. What new information did you feel you wanted to reveal about your great-grandfather, Ernest Hemingway?
The main thing that sets Ernest’s Way apart from other Hemingway biographies is its personal perspective. I truly love my great-grandfather’s writing—favorites include short stories, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” “Big Two-Hearted River,” “Indian Camp,” and “Cat in the Rain,” as well as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and A Moveable Feast. I grew up with the legacy that Ernest’s life and writing created, and his reputation as an adventurer and one of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century has affected me directly all my life. I tell some of the stories of that influence in Ernest’s Way with the hope that my first-hand perspective will lend a unique warmth and access to the places I share with the reader. While I trace the path of Ernest’s travels across the globe, I examine the influence of these places on his own personal growth and writing. In addition, Ernest’s Way lays out the history, addresses, and contact details for the homes, hotels, restaurants, cafés, museums, and other places of interest associated with one of the first truly modern American writers, making it both an affectionate telling of his life story, as well as a detailed guide.
4. What is something you’d like to ask your great grandfather if he was still alive?
There are so many things I would like to ask him. I’d love to know what were some of the things he loved most about my great-grandmother, Pauline. I’d like to ask him what he thinks make stories like “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and “Indian Camp” so great. What was his favorite scene in A Farewell to Arms? Which of his novels, other than The Old Man and the Sea—which he said he thought was his best—is he most proud? What are some of today’s pressing topics that he’d feel most compelled to write about, in journalism and/or in fiction? I’d love his feedback on the novel I’m writing!
Ernest’s Way was released in hardcover on December 3 by Pegasus Books.
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Kathleen Olp is a first-year MFA candidate at Boise State University where she teaches fiction and serves as an editorial assistant for The Idaho Review.