A. E. Hotchner: Westporter recalls days with Hemingway. File photoNewspapers around the country today are featuring an Associated Press story about Westport’s A.E. Hotchner and his relationship with Ernest Hemingway.
More than 40 years since Hemingway took his own life, Hotchner has forgotten nothing about his old friend and father figure: his books and the sound of his voice, the way he would put his hand over his mouth when he laughed, the AP said.
Feminists, animal rights advocates and others have taken on Hemingway, but for Hotchner, the author remains the ideal as both man and writer, someone who burned the fat off American prose and made a religion out of experience and adventure, the report said.
“He’s the bellwether,” the 85-year-old Hotchner told the AP. “He’s the bar that’s too high to jump, but nevertheless you know that somebody once jumped it. His lust for life, his embracing of so many layers of living was just incredible.”
