The Old Man and She

Thinking back on the summer of 1929, when he was hanging out with the expatriate literary community in Paris, the novelist Morley Callaghan recalled how Ernest Hemingway’s lonely expression would change to a “quick sweet smile” whenever he entered a bar and saw friends. After their time together ended, Callaghan continued to follow reports of Hemingway’s life and watched as he became both a successful writer and a global celebrity.

In July 1961, Callaghan received a call from an acquaintance who worked for one of the wire services: Hemingway had died. Callaghan couldn’t believe it. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’ll turn up again.” This response wasn’t as strange as it might seem. Several years earlier, in 1954, Hemingway’s death had been widely reported after a plane crash in Africa, yet he had emerged alive. The man on the phone assured Callaghan that this time, Papa really had died...