AMERICANWAY

Instead ofbeing hounded by themasses, he was afforded the luxury of going out and be- ing one with the people, partying and so- cializing in peace. In fact, Purdy,who often ate and drank around town with his good friend, never once sawHemingway sign an autograph. TODAY, HEMINGWAY’S presence in Ketchumand Sun Valley, fromthe numer- ous outdoormemorials to a space devoted to him at the Heritage and SkiMuseum, is still verymuch alive. Locals say the author has becomeimmersed in the culture of the area. At a neighborhood bar, I’m offered a “Death in the Afternoon” cocktail, a drink Hemingway invented that happens to be an unhappymixture of Pernod and cham- pagne; it tastes remarkably similar toGood &Plentycandy.Thethought offinishing it is nauseating,but I’monaHemingway assign- ment, and I can feel the author urgingme tomanup, so downthe hatch it goes. At the Heritage and SkiMuseum, I find Heming- way’s Underwood typewriter and a typed, hand-corrected page from For Whom the Bell Tolls (he wrote the first 20 chapters of the novel inroom206 of the Sun Valley Lodge). Touring themuseum, I meet Bob Ulrich, a tourist fromPoughkeepsie, N.Y., who has, with a friend, taken a day off from askitrip totake inthe town’s Hemingway offerings. While snapping photos, Ulrich explains thatwhile he’s always enjoyed Hemingway’s books, he’s really more drawn toHemingway the man rather W ide, the attraction to Hemingway seems to be split between those drawn to the words on the page and those interested in the nearly mythical stories of the man. But maybe the orldw two need not be mutually exclusive. than the writer.Worldwide, the attrac- tion toHemingway seems to be split be- tween those drawn to thewords on the page and those interested in the nearly mythical stories of theman.Butmaybe the two need not bemutually exclusive. Hemingway’s influence is evident in countless writers, fromNelson Algren to Norman Mailer to Elmore Leonard. When I caught up with Leonard to ask himwhat exactlyHemingwaymeant to him, the answer came quickly. “He says somuch in a few words,” Leonard says. All the books being pushed on students when Leonard was at the University of Detroit in the late 1940s, he says, “were toowordy,everyoneexceptHemingway.” Itwas like abreathof freshair tothe col- lege student. When Leonard — who’s known for such hard-boiled classics as Rum Punch and Get Shorty and on whose work the current FX series Justified is based — started to write in1950, it was the dia- logue and the brevity of Hemingway’s prose that inspired him—and it’swhat he tried to carry on in his ownwork.He especiallyconnectedwithHemingway’s AA.COM/AMERICANWAY JUNE 15, 2011 43

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