Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and His Last Muse

Written by Andrea di Robilant

Narrated by P.J. Ochlan

In the fall of 1948 Hemingway and his fourth wife traveled for the first time to Venice, which Hemingway called "a goddam wonderful city." He was a year shy of his fiftieth birthday and hadn't published a novel in nearly a decade. At a duck shoot in the lagoon he met and fell in love with Adriana Ivancich, a striking Venetian girl just out of finishing school. Di Robilant—whose great-uncle moved in Hemingway's revolving circle of bon vivants, aristocrats, and artists—re-creates with sparkling clarity this surprising, years-long relationship. Hemingway used Adriana as the model for Renata in Across the River and into the Trees, and continued to visit Venice to see her; when the Ivanciches traveled to Cuba, Adriana was there as he wrote The Old Man and the Sea. This illuminating story of writer and muse—which also examines the cost to a young woman of her association with a larger-than-life literary celebrity—is an intimate look at the fractured heart and changing art of Hemingway in his fifties.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Jun 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781684412198

Reviews for Autumn in Venice

[etxgardener · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After World War II, Ernest Hemingway was in a funk. He was depressed, had writer's block and seems to be regretting marrying his 4th wife Mary Welsh. In an attempt to cheer him up,Mary organizes a motoring tour of the south of France and Italy and in Venice Hemingway met the love 18-year old Adriana who was his muse for his largely regrettable novel Across the River and Into the Trees

It's debatable whether or not Hemingway actually had a sexual relationship with Adriana, but he was clearly smitten and there was a voluminous correspondence between the two with lots of "Papa" and "daughter" blather. (And how did anyone take this blatantly Freudian dialogue seriously?) And why did Mary Welsh stick around? Was she that desperate to be close to fame?

In the end, Hemingway left Adriana's reputation ruined in Venice and like him, she ended her life in suicide. This was just a sad story all around.