Hemingway's Suitcase

From the Jacket:

In present-day Los Angeles, a wealthy dilettante named Nils-Frederik Glas returns from Europe and produces some tories that bear a striking resemblance to Hemingway's early work. So begins MacDonald Harris' iongenous and provocative new novel, Hemingway's Suitcase. Nils-Frederik refuses to say where the stories came from, but he announces his intention to publish them to his son, Alan, a struggling literary agent. As Alan reads the manuscripts one by one, he realizes that if they are genuine Hemingway stories, Nils-Frederik has made the literary discovery of the century. If they are not, he is a clever forgerer and the perpetrator of a possibly criminal fraud.

When Alan reluctantly agrees to help his father prepare the book for publication, he finds himself entangled in a web of intrigue and mystery, where the distinction between genuine and fraudulent is oddly blurred. It is a web spun by the cunning and duplicitous Nils-Frederik, made even more sinister by the sexual fantasies played out by his mistress, Charmian, and the bizarre private visions of Nana, his blind and aged mother. Alan's wife, Lily, looks for her truth in the stars, and even their nine-year-old daughter, Kilda, is adept at creating her own realities. Everywhere--in his convoluted relations with his father, in his curious attempts to create facsimiles of the "Hemingway" manuscripts, in his encounters with less-than-ethical academics, opportunistic publishers, and the ominous private sleuth Klipspringer--Alan is confronted by the question: What is false, what is real?

Five of the disputed Suitcase stories, all having as their hero the Nick Adams of Hemingway's early fiction, are included in this witty, cleverly plotted, and compellingly readable novel. Are they the work of Hemingway or not? Let the reader decide--as all of the characters in Alan's world must finall come to terms with the lives they have created--or merely imagined--for themselves. Hemingway's Suitcase is a fascinating exploration of the duplicities of human consciousness. But is also a story with many suspensful twists and turns--a story that will challenge the reader's imagination and his own sense of reality as it spins towards its surprising conclusion.

Critical Acclaim for Hemingway's Suitcase

"In the winter of 1922 a suitcase containing part of a novel and twenty or so stories by Ernest Hemingway was stolen from a train. So starts this thoroughly enjoyable literary lark by veteran novelist Harris (The Little People), complete with five clever 'Hemingway' stories. Always in the foreground is th e suitcase, a symbol, 'like Pandora's box, or Faust's pact with the Devil. They're about good and evil...this one is about real and false.' "

Publisher's Weekly

Publisher's Weekly "One of the most entertaining novels ever written about writing fiction...Mr. Harris's premise and its complications are so diverting, and the stories themselves so witty and evocative of Hemingway, that...one agrees to be manipulated in the interest of having a good time."

The New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review "Harris is primarily a storyteller with a deceptively casual way of moving along a plot. His characters spring to life with the greatest of ease, he imparts a sense of mystery with every page, his English countryside is as exotic as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Latin America."

Dan Cryer, Newsday

Dan Cryer, Newsday "Harris's range is, in fact, immense. Genuinely cosmopolitan, yet without pretensions, he deeply knows and loves the many foreign languages, landscapes, and mythologies that figure in his books. Compared with most modern tales of K mart angst or upscale introspection, Harris is an erudite writer, well versed not only in the history and arts of the past but in science and technology as well."

Michael Malone, Philadelphia Inquirer

Michael Malone, Philadelphia Inquirer "Mr. Harris is an elegant and fastidious writer, a thinking man's novelist, with a penchant for international situations and polyglot dialogue."

James R. Mellow, The New York Times Book Review

James R. Mellow, The New York Times Book Review "There can no longer be any question whatever that MacDonald Harris is one of our major novelists."

Arthur Zilch, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Arthur Zilch, Los Angeles Times Book Review "MacDonald Harris's clever prose is imbued with generous humor and subtle wisdom. The seductive magic of literature and legend make this, Harris's fourteenth novel, another small classic in the gallery of great American Literature."

The San Francisco Chronicle.

Return to Harris/Heiney publications page