This must have been one tough man to research, Hemingway was a legend for exaggeration and constantly changing his life story.  One line in this book, a quote by his 4th wife Mary Welsh, sums him up perfectly:

"I could never detect when he skidded off fact into fiction."

One of the most famous events in his early life was getting injured on the front during WWI, his story changes again and again, sometimes exaggerating and sometimes more humble.  Richard Owen has done a good job, instead of trying to prove which one was real he has shown the reader each version in a sort of timeline and how that fits into each of his books.  Owen's writing is really easy to get into and right from the off I was hooked, I was able to use google along side this book to find images of Hemingway in these places and the people he hung out with, I loved the pictures on him as a young man on the front line in his uniform.  One of the biggest things to stand out in this book is how much he loved Italy and how much the people he met loved him, it just shows what kind of man he was to make so many friends.

It has been a long time since I read anything by Hemingway, so long in fact that all I can remember is that I didn't get what was so great about his writing, nothing really happened and then it had a dark ending.  This fascinating book by Owen really does add a whole new dimension to Hemingway's books and I'm planning to get a couple of them to read again and put my knowledge gained here to good use.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/hemingway-in-italy-by-richard-owen/