Western Writer Follows Hemingway’s European Footsteps

By Jenny Shank, 7-28-10

Regular New West contributor and Colorado-based travel writer David Frey has been off on a dream trip for several weeks, following in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway through Europe.  Frey is documenting it all on his blog, Papa’s Planet, which he is turning into a book, tentatively titled “Papa’s Planet: An Ernest Exploration of the Places Hemingway Lived and Loved.”

In a presentation Frey gave last month explaining his interest in Hemingway, he wrote, “In Ernest Hemingway, there’s something we can all claim. He was a freedom-loving, communist-loving, red-white-and-blue, gun-toting nature lover who almost assuredly ate quiche.”

Frey is writing detailed postcards from his Hemingway stops, such as 74 Rue de Cardinal Lemoine in Paris, where Hemingway and his wife Hadley lived, an interlude described in A Moveable Feast.  In Spain, Frey interviewed Maripaz Vega, the country’s only female bullfighter.  He’s also been to Venice, Cuba, Key West, and Ketchum, Idaho, journeys he explains in the essay ”Why I’m Stalking Hemingway,” which was named a Community Keynote in the Travel Blog Exchange annual conference in New York last June.

Frey reports he’s scheduled to have an article on Hemingway’s Sun Valley in the fall issue of Sun Valley Magazine, “looking at the ways Sun Valley has changed since Hemingway’s day and the role he played bringing those changes about.”

• AIGA, the professional association for design, is hosting an exhibition this week in Denver of 50 outstanding recent book covers, the winners of its annual book cover design contest.  The exhibit, “50 Books/50 Covers,” appears at the Denver Pavillions (16th and Glenarm, 2nd Level East), and is open from July 27 through July 31, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 5 - 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

• Speaking of bookish art exhibits, in September, the Redshift Gallery in Denver (2266 Broadway) will present an exhibit of 40 woodcuts by Argentine artist Alfredo Benavidez Bedoya that illustrate the new book The Hermaphrodite (An Hallucinated Memoir) by Daniel Grandbois.  Grandbois is the author of the story collection Unlucky Lucky Days and is a musician in several accomplished Denver bands including Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Tarantella, and Munly.  The opening reception for the exhibit is on Thursday, September 9th (6-9 p.m.).  Grandbois will read from and discuss The Hermaphrodite at the Tattered Cover (Colfax) next week, on August 5th (7:30 p.m.).  Look for New West’s interview with Grandbois soon.

• One of my favorite book blogs to read is Ward Six, the project of inventive fiction writer J. Robert Lennon (a University of Montana M.F.A. graduate, author of, most recently, the novel Castle) and his wife, Rhian Ellis, author of the novel After Life.  Recently Ward Six ran a post that I thought would be of interest to New West readers, about “excellent” names Lennon found in the Missoula phone book.  Combing through the phone book is a time-honored way for writers to name their characters.  Lennon writes, “I’ve always spent a lot of time reading phonebooks. One day, there won’t be any phonebooks anymore, so we should celebrate them while we can!” Among the Missoula residents with exemplary names are Vernon Slippy, N. Eyepopper, Spanky Scrunchly, and Fern Tiger. 

If Fern, Vernon, Mr. or Ms. Eyepopper, Spanky, or anyone else on Lennon’s list of names is reading this, send me an email and I’ll send you some kind of a prize.  A book-shaped prize.

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