True at First Light - Publication Controversy

Publication Controversy

Many reviewers and writers were critical of the manner in which Patrick Hemingway edited the work. Paul Gray titled his review of the book "Where's Papa?", answering with the opening sentence, "He's hard to find in his fifth posthumous work", pointing directly to Patrick Hemingway's editing of the manuscript. Lynn thinks Hemingway would have been "outraged by his sons' refusal to honor his judgment that the manuscript was unworthy of publication" and was outraged that "Patrick Hemingway declares that his two brothers, Jack and Gregory, share his belief that 'this job was worth doing' ". Burwell also wonders whether Hemingway wanted the Africa book published, pointing to his statement, "I think maybe it would be better to wait until I'm dead to publish it", although she concedes that works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Kafka were unfinished and published posthumously. During the final two decades of his life, Hemingway had published two novels but since his death, works continue to be published. Writing in The New Yorker in 1998, Joan Didion was extremely critical of the Hemingway family and estate for commercializing and profiting from his reputation and writing rather than protecting his legacy. "The publication of unfinished work is a denial of the idea that the role of the writer in his or her work is to make it", she wrote, adding that True at First Light should not have been "molded" and published.

True at First Light was published in Hemingway's centennial year, to a marketing campaign that attracted criticism. Hemingway's sons licensed the family name and released that year items such as Thomasville furniture with labels showing the Hemingway lifestyle—"the Pamplona Sofa and the Kilimanjaro Bed"—and the Hemingway Ltd. brand, which Lynn describes as "tastefully chosen fishing rods, safari clothes, and (surely the ultimate triumph of greed over taste) shotguns".