Hemingway Biography Sheds New Light on Famous Author

Hemingway Was No Hero

HENDAYE, FR, FRANCE, March 6, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Curtis L. DeBerg is pleased to announce the upcoming release of his much anticipated biography/memoir, Wrestling with Demons: In Search of the Real Ernest Hemingway. This poignant and inspiring work offers readers a deeply personal glimpse into Hemingway’s life journey, focusing on those things that haunted him most: parents, wives, pain, anguish and, in a surprisingly new twist on the Nobel prize-winning author, rivalry with others who were wounded in World War I.

One of these rivals was an Italian soldier, Fedele Temperini, who was positioned between Hemingway and the exploding mortar shell on June 8, 1918. Based on new information from war historians and a renowned orthopedic surgeon, DeBerg shows that Hemingway was not the war hero that he himself projected and the world believed; instead, he was a reckless youth who put himself in harm’s way. The exploding mortar shell killed Temperini and nearly cost Hemingway his life. Temperini was perhaps the real hero. He accidentally or intentionally saved Hemingway’s life.¹

Hemingway committed suicide in 1961 after spending several months in the Mayo Clinic’s psychiatric ward. The lies about his war experience haunted the great writer his entire adult life. Living with such lies would have weighed heavily on any man and is one of the main reasons “that his inner landscape was a nightmare and he spent his nights wrestling with the gods,” as Norman Mailer wrote after Hemingway's suicide. DeBerg’s new research about Hemingway’s war wounds adds to the body of scholarship on this important subject.

Mailer’s quote has provided the inspiration for the book’s title and was a basis for greater scrutiny of Hemingway's demons. DeBerg agrees with Mailer, who also wrote, “It is not likely that Hemingway was a brave man who sought danger for the sake of the sensations that provided him. What is more likely the truth of his own Odyssey is that he struggled with his cowardice and against a secret lust to suicide all his life.”

Wrestling with Demons chronicles Hemingway’s experiences growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, and follows him around the world: from Michigan to Paris, Switzerland to Spain, Key West to Montana, and, finally, from Havana to Ketchum, Idaho, where the author ended his tumultuous and tortured life at the end of a double-barreled shotgun. Through vivid storytelling and candid reflections on Hemingway, DeBerg invites readers to accompany him on a transformative journey marked by heartbreak and adversity. Like Hemingway, DeBerg had an overbearing mother, a drinking problem, excruciating pain from a plane crash, and suicidal thoughts. By coping with his own demons, DeBerg could understand better those which haunted Hemingway.

Early reviewers have praised Wrestling with Demons for its raw honesty, lyrical prose, and universal themes. According to reviewer Andrew Theising, author of Hemingway’s St. Louis, “DeBerg embraces many skills here—he is documentarian, historian, journalist, and playwright. His style paints vivid pictures in the mind's eye, as if the reader is sitting at a table overhearing a conversation with Hemingway himself. The book is informative and highly entertaining.”

DeBerg, a retired university professor, is an independent author, and shares time between his homes in Hendaye, France and Miami, Florida. He holds a doctoral degree from Oklahoma State University. Wrestling with Demons is his third book about Hemingway.

“I especially became intrigued with Hemingway after spending four months in the hospital³,” DeBerg said. While recovering from his injuries, DeBerg could better understand the challenges faced by Hemingway. “As I read dozens of books by and about Hemingway, I learned that he had several demons, and I could personally relate to many of them.”

Curtis L DeBerg
Author/Writer
+1 530-815-8840
curtdeberg@gmail.com
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¹ https://nypost.com/2019/01/22/this-is-the-mystery-soldier-who-saved-ernest-hemingways-life/
² http://curtdeberg.com
³ http://curtdeberg.com