Walking Into the River: A Novel

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very Good in very good dust jacket. DJ has slight wear and soiling.. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 288 p. A poignant, beautifully written, brutally honest first novel by the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, about a woman's death-defying battle with alcoholism and insanity--and her courage to prevail. This is the first novel by one of Papa's granddaughters. It is a roman a clef/autobiographical work. The big-game hunter's son is described as a cross-dressing wreck; the granddaughter, raised by an alcoholic mother and an abusive stepfather, heroically breaks the cycle of drink and despair. In Walking into the River, Lorian Hemingway offsets this grim family romance with vinegary vignettes from a Southern childhood. From Wikipedia: "Lorian Hemingway (born December 15, 1951) is an American author, whose books include the memoir Walk on Water, the novel "Walking Into the River", and the non-fiction book "A World Turned Over" about the devastation of her hometown, South Jackson, Mississippi, by the Candlestick Park Tornado in 1966. Her articles have appeared in GQ, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Rolling Stone. In 1992, Hemingway was nominated for The Mississippi Arts and Letters Award for Fiction for her debut novel "Walking Into the River." In 1999 she received The Conch Republic Prize for Literature for her body of work and her dedication to encouraging the talent of new writers. Her work has been positively reviewed by The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, and TIME Magazine, among others. Her nature essays have appeared in several anthologies, including "Uncommon Waters", "The Gift of Trout", "Headwaters", "A Different Angle" and "Growing Up in Mississippi." She is former editor-at-large of Flyfishing & Tying Journal. In 1981, she founded the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition which is "dedicated to recognizing and supporting the work of emerging writers." The competition, which is open to U.S. and international citizens, draws between 600 and 900 submissions annually. She was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of the late Gregory Hemingway. Her mother, the late Shirley Jane Rhodes, was a former Powers model. Hemingway is one of 12 grandchildren of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway is the great-granddaughter of a Cherokee chief on her mother's side. Her daughter is writer, Cristen Hemingway Jaynes."