…ex-pat American writer and publisher Bob McAlmon, 27, is watching his first bullfight.
McAlmon came here with his new American buddies from Paris, Ernest Hemingway, 23, and his pregnant wife, Hadley, 31, and publisher Bill Bird, 35. Hem had heard of the glories of the bullring from his mentor in Paris, writer Gertrude Stein, 49, and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, 46. McAlmon is thinking that Hemingway is enjoying this spectacle just because Stein said he should.
Bob is not sure if he is enjoying it, though. Yeah, they’ve got the top seats and the top liquor—but that’s because he’s paying for everything! Ever since Bob’s Paris friends found out that he and his British wife Bryher, 28, are living off her substantial inheritance, they all expect him to pick up the tab.
McAlmon is also paying for the publication of Hemingway’s first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems, due to come out in a few months from McAlmon’s new Contact Press. Bryher’s family money is supporting that too.
But that’s an investment. Bob thinks he might make some money out of the books some day. But certainly not out of the bullfights.
Bob McAlmon, left, and his new BFF Ernest Hemingway at the bullfight in Madrid, 1923
This year, we’ll be telling stories about these groups of ‘such friends,’ before, during and after their times together.
Manager as Muse explores Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ work with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.
To walk with the ‘Such Friends’ through Bloomsbury, download the Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group audio walking tour from VoiceMap. Look for our upcoming walking tour about the Paris ‘such friends.’
SuchFriends Blog 