This debut novel by a Toronto writer covers the four month period of late 1923 when a young Ernest Hemingway with a bride and a newborn was employed as a frusrated reporter by The Toronto Daily Star. That part of the story is not fiction. He is assigned to write about a daring breakout from the Kingston Penitentury which is also not fiction, but after other assignments, he keeps encountering the escaped convicts in a variety of highly unlikely places, including Windsor’s rum-running docks, and at a boxing match in New York. He becomes obsessed with and sympathetic to the convicts. Alternating short chapters detail the harrowing adventures of the escapees as they steal cars and rob banks and the frustrated writer who has yet to become famous.
The title bears a dubious if any connection to the plot other than Hemingway’s known love for bullfighting and cheering for the underdog.
The writing is superbly entertaining but the premise is exaggerated to the point of being unbelievable. But as an introduction to the young Hemingway, his way of looking at the world, and the Toronto of the 1920s it is unparalleled.
3.5/5
Thanks Mike.
The Passionate Reader 