truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

The Hemingway myth that men can kill every animal, drink copious amounts of beer, marry an endless succession of women, and write the Great American novel (repeatedly) is just that — a myth.

In Marty Beckerman’s new book The Heming Way: How to Unleash the Booze-Inhaling, Animal-Slaughtering, War-Glorifying, Hairy-Chested Retro-Sexual Legend Within, Just Like Papa!, he mocks the dumb macho imitators Hemingway spawned and restores Hemingway’s stature as the Most Interesting Man in the World.

I sat down to drink beer by the gallon and consume heart-attack inducing red meat with Beckerman to discuss why the Heming Way and today’s male are both so very dumb.

Hemingway is known for his achievements and literary immortality, but he must have done a lot of dumb stuff in his day too.

He had a lifelong ability to shoot himself or fall off his boat. One time a skylight came crashing down on his head, randomly. He was extremely accident-prone, which probably goes along with being massively drunk all the time. When you’re drinking gin and whiskey for breakfast, you’re gonna occasionally shoot yourself by accident, what with so many guns in the house. He did shoot himself in the foot by accident, although maybe that was practice for blasting his face off, I don’t know.

What’s the single dumbest thing Hemingway ever did? 

Continue reading “Macho macho maniac: Insane Hemingway myths and truths” »