I have read a lot of Hem nonfiction for the past six weeks. this book, besides educating me on the Spanish Civil war, also introduced me to several other meaningful authors /journalists from Hems salad days.

it read more like a novel than a work of nonfiction. poor Jose, though he was the main thrust of this book, he was just a back drop, much like a stage prop, to dissect the relationship of Dos and Hem and it's ultimate collapse. To me the most telling occurrence was the get well concerned letter Dos sent Hem after his stint in the Mayo Clinic.

At the end Hem had so few friends left that he had not run off with his belligerent attitudes and mental illness run amuck.

Martha Gellhorn so easy to dislike. wonder if Hem regarded her as his female reflection? she made no attempt to conceal her intentions to use him.

everything I read about Ernest Hemingway makes me want more. I like so many other people male and female alike have come under his spell. ( )

* The Spanish Civil War and the leftist learnings of many 1930s artists are central to the story of the disintegration of the friendship of Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.

A test: Which of these men have you heard of?

* Ernest Hemingway? You kidding? Of course. Read his books and many of his short stories. About the best writer the 20th century produced.

* John Dos Passos? Well, yeah, sort of. A writer, sure. Never read any of his stuff.

* Jose Robles? Sorry. Never heard of him.

Those three come together, sort of, in an odd but interesting story of the 1930s' major literary lights by Stephen Koch titled The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles.

Hemingway and Dos Passos in the middle of the 1930 were America's two leading novelists. They were close friends and supporters of the left-wing Popular Front, a Soviet-backed organization of writers and artists. The major battle of the forces of the left against the fascists came during the Spanish Civil War, but with the mix of internal Spanish politics and Soviet meddling, nothing in this tale is simple. The story revolves around the dissipation of the friendship between Hemingway and Dos Passos. That occurred for a number of reasons, including Hemingway's paranoia and his role in spreading the rumor that Jose Robles -- Dos Passos' friend -- was executed by the Spanish government because he was a fascist spy.

Koch has carefully researched this tale of Depression era radical chic. He includes many interesting sidelights, such as the development of the relationship between Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, the noted journalist who would become Hemingway's third wife. (Gellhorn is about to be honored by the U.S. Postal Service.) Hemingway is clearly the villain, and Dos Passos is the good guy in Koch's view, and it's hard to disagree with him.

One of the over-arching lessons of this book is how extensively the Communist and leftist movement gripped many of the nation's leading authors and artists in the 1930. This hold led many of them to ignore Stalin's atrocities until it was too late, and they too had blood on their hands as Uncle Joe's apologists.

If you are interested in any of these issues, this is an excellent book.

Highly recommended. ( )

This book details the rift that emerged between Hemingway and Dos Passos after the arrest and subsequent murder of Dos's Spanish friend Jose Robles Pazos during the time of the Spanish Civil War. Robles was one of the many victims of Stalin's comintern agents who at Stalin's behest were settling scores behind the Republican lines against people who they were nominally allied with. Koch follows both writers both in the USA and in Spain and shows how other Comintern agents manipulated the rift for their own ends. Hemingway and Dos Passos (maybe the most famous american novelists at the time) initially are the 'names' needed to sell the American public on a film being produced ostensibly to build support for the Spanish Republic against the Nationalist Franco-led usurpers. Both are willing because both support the Republican cause however Hemingway is the one that Stalin and his apparatchik's really want. One gets the picture here of the macho and vainglorious Hemingway struggling with writers block and numerous extra-marital affairs finding a new love in Martha Gellhorn and heading off to Spain with her quickly following him as if he were going on a hunting expedition. Dos Passos follows him by a couple weeks and when he arrives he arrives to a very cool reception--in stark contrast to Hemingway's reception. He decides to look up one of his oldest friends only to find out from his terrified wife that he has been arrested and she doesn't know why or where he is. This is of course Robles. Dos Passos determines to find out what's going on and it is this that make the authorities uneasy enough that they eventually plant the idea in Hemingway's head that Robles was a fascist spy and for that reason had been executed; and then they manipulate Hemingway into dropping this bombshell on Dos Passos at a party in front of lots of people. Dos Passos however is not satisfied with that and he and an increasingly hostile Hemingway have one confrontation over it after another. In the end Dos Passos more or less finds out the truth but literally unable to do anything about it he returns to the United States. Hemingway continues to support the new status quo. The book also tracks a number of Soviet operatives and their efforts to undermine the Republican war effort--and points out also that Stalin never wanted the Spanish Republic to win--that in fact he wanted the treaty he would eventually get with Hitler and they he wanted to divert Hitler's attention towards a war in western europe and away from his own designs in eastern europe.

The book itself moves along at a nice pace. The tone of the writer is very engaging. There are a number of footnotes from a variety of sources and I found it to be a very credible and also an interesting book. ( )