Lecture Date: February 22, 2018
The Theresa Y. Crawley, D.D.S. Lecture
During World War I, hundreds of young Americans volunteered to serve ambulance drivers retrieving the dead and wounded from the front line. Among their ranks were John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway who briefly met near the front. When the war was over, both men knew they had to write about it; they had to give voice to what they felt about war and life.
Their ensuing friendship and collaboration developed through the peace of the 1920s and 1930s as Hemingway's novels soared to success while Dos Passos penned the greatest antiwar novel of his generation, Three Soldiers. In war, Hemingway found adventure, women, and a cause. Dos Passos saw only oppression and futility. Their different visions eventually turned their private friendship into a bitter public fight, fueled by money, jealousy, and lust.
From Paris cafes to the Austrian Alps, from the streets of Pamplona to the waters of Key West, the story of the turbulent friendship between two of the century's greatest writers is an illustration of how war inspires and destroys, unites and divides.
Speaker: James McGrath Morris
James McGrath Morris is a writer whose narrative nonfiction style results in books that read like novels, according to both the New York Times and The Economist. Aside from his newest work, The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War, Morris’ books include the New York Times bestselling Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, The First Lady of the Black Press, which was awarded the Benjamin Hooks National Book Prize; Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power—which the Wall Street Journal deemed was one of the five best books on American moguls; The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism—a Washington Post Best Book of the Year; and, Jailhouse Journalism: The Four Estate Behind Bars. Twice the American Library Association’s Booklist selected Morris’ biographies for its annual list of ten best biographies of the year.
He is also the author of the Kindle Singles Revolution by Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick and The Radio Operator: Robert Ford's Last Stand in the Fight to Save Tibet.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Morris spent a decade as a journalist, a decade working in the book and magazine business, and a decade as a high school teacher. He is the former president of Biographers International Organization, of which he was among the original founders. Morris lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is currently working on a biography of mystery writer Tony Hillerman.