Book Review: Four Days with Hemingway’s Ghost By Tom Winton

· 158 pages
· Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (July 2, 2012)

The title grabbed me: “Four Days with Hemingway’s Ghost.” Then when I read the blurb that after an accident Jack Phelan, in a coma for four days, spent those four days with Ernest Hemingway. I was hooked. Now, if the writing were decent, I’d wallow in another good book for a few hours. Hours that turned out to be well spent.

Imagine being a writer palling around with Hemingway, him giving you free advice. We learn that God is using Hemingway to give confidence to Jack Phelan to write and to tell the real story about Hemingway.

Tom Winton always writes as if he knows me and is speaking directly to me. This advice from Hemingway really hit home: The regrets that from time to time pop into my mind as I grow older. “ A man can learn from his past mistakes, and he should, but reliving them…that does absolutely no good. If you rehash all the poor choices and decisions you’ve made, it’s like stabbing yourself again and again.”

“…don’t ever entertain them any longer than you have to, and never invite them back.”

I’ll read anything that Tom Winton writes. There’s always a good story, there’s an old fashioned set of values in his writing, and he’s writing about me. Pick up a copy. I’ll wager he’s writing about you.