John Hemingway Stops on By

(Prongs and Padfoot at the Hemingway Lecture)

One reason I love going to The Ohio State University: we get cool free lectures by famous people and their grandsons. I invited Prongs over for the night to see Hemingway’s grandson talk about his new book, Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir, which is about the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and his bipolar/transsexual son Gregory. Although we have only read The Old Man and the Sea, we decided that since Hemingway is a very influential writer with an abundance of classic works, it would be a sweet opportunity to hear his grandson speak.

Here are a few things we learned about Greg and Ernest Hemingway:

• John’s father, Gregory, was a transgender/cross-dresser and eventually had a sex change, and turned him from Gregory-->Gloria
• Gregory, like his father, was bipolar, and his wife was schizophrenic
• Ernest’s book Island in the Stream was basically autobiographical: it was about a family, three sons, and a son that was smart, but had a dark side to him, as well as his father, which reflected Ernest’s family life
• Ernest himself had many effeminate suggestions in his own writings, especially in his short stories from the early 20’s
• Gregory was arrested for walking into a bar while dressed as a woman. His mother and father found out and screamed at each other on the phone; not too long after his mother went to the hospital and died a stress-related death. Ernest blamed Gregory…Gregory criticized his father’s accusations, yet he could never forgive himself.
• Unknown to many people, Gregory was the example of a constant Hemingway hero: manly, strong, yet had a compassionate and fragile side.

Although it was interesting to hear about the relationship between Ernest and his son, the lecture probably could have been cut in half. Here are some pictures of our notes; take from them what you will.

(Click to enlarge notes)

Enjoy those pearls of wisdom that are given to you. If anybody is interested in learning more about Hemingway's life, and/or John's new book, here is the link to his blog:

johnhemingway.blogspot.com