Metro Times, a Detroit area entertainment newspaper, recently featured an article byJohn Cohassey on Ernest Hemingway and the influence “Up North” had on his life and writing. Several years ago I got to visit Windemere, the Hemingway’s summer cottage on Walloon Lake. It was an eary experience to be in the same room, the same spot where Hemingway stood. I had visited his Key West home in the 70s but it wasn’t the same. His Key West compound wasn’t as intimate.

The young Hemingway had spent his summers here. This is where he was “forever young”. As you looked around the home you could feel and see what he did. There was the height chart of the Hemingway children on the wall and letters to his family sprinkled about.  It was sparse. It evoked so much of his straight-forward writing style and the places in the “Nick Adams Stories”.

Cohassey is a Michigan based writer of “The Cultural Rebels” and “Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson”. In his article, Cohassey provides one of the best descriptions of  Hemingway’s time in Michigan and his favorite haunts. The article should also move you to take a look at the new book by Michael Federspiel, “Picturing Hemingway’s Michigan” which to date is the “best by far” book on the Michigan Hemingway experience. Federspiel will be discussing his book at McClean & Eakin Bookstore in Petoskey on July 19 and the Delta Township Library, Tuesday July 20 at 6 p.m. Mittenlit posted an extensive interview with Federspiel on the release of his new book.