A newspaper asked me if I would tell them about the strange moments in Hemingways attic. I wrote up in the Hemingway birthplace attic from 1998 to really 2008. Now when I went up into the attic it was just an attic with mice and squirrels and bugs and wasps and Hemingway toys and books scattered about. Highlights would include being there at night and hearing footsteps in the house and going down and finding the fire burning in the fireplace. Meeting Bumby Jack Hemingway ...the first son and then Patrick his third son. Getting the Hemingway crib up in Petosky in a blinding snowstorm and bringing it back to the house. That was a story in itself.
My computer freezing in winter then cooking in summer and having computer cords chewed through. Writing on Marcelline's trunk (Hemingway's sister) that was in a different place every time I came back up. Getting terrific headaches whenever I tired to read Fitzgerald up in the attic. Writing a book called Hemingway's Attic and then losing it up there and finding it months later where I left I. Weird. The strange energy that is the attic. The feeling I had to leave or never write a book I could call my own again. Bumping into a Hemingway look alike from Florida who really did look exactly like Hemingway.
Well I write over a garage now and have been very productive. The Pitcher is just out and a new book out in the spring called One Up and one out next fall called Real Santa. I know that Hemingway wrote For Whom The Bell Tolls over his garage in Florida. So I guess you never really escape the Ernest shadow.
