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The Breaking Point

Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles

By Stephen Koch

List Price: $15.95

March 13, 2012 | Paperback | 5.5 x 8, 320 Pages | ISBN 9781582437989
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“Its small drama leads directly to all the big questions abut the nature of the Spanish Civil War... A series of vividly rendered scenes connected by intelligent commentary.” —The New Yorker

When American authors John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway went to Spain in 1937 to witness the Spanish Civil War firsthand, the devastation they encountered was far from impersonal: As Spain was unraveling thread by thread, so was the relationship between these two literary titans. They had arrived in Spain as comrades, leftist writers-in-arms. But a real-life literary mystery unfolded when Dos Passos’ friend José Robles—a Spanish-born Johns Hopkins professor—disappeared. Written from a novelist’s eye for detail, The Breaking Point is the story of two lives at the intersection of friendship and murder, of love and death, and of literature and history.

This new edition coincides with the HBO original series “Hemingway and Gellhorn,” that has been filming since March 2011 in San Francisco. It’s due to air on HBO in May 2012, starring Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen. The film focuses mainly on the travels and relationship of Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway as detailed in The Breaking Point.

About Stephen Koch

STEPHEN KOCH, the former head of the Writing Division of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, is the author of numerous books including Double Lives and The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop. He lives in New York City.

Praise

“A deeply thoughtful, trenchant examination… A whopping good literary tale… explored here by a master of the literary and the political.” —Kirkus Starred Review

“[A] riveting account of a time when personality, ideology, and war all collided.” —Library Journal

“Its small drama leads directly to all the big questions abut the nature of the Spanish Civil War… A series of vividly rendered scenes connected by intelligent commentary.” —The New Yorker

“[A] pungent mix of literary biography, history, and international political thriller… a story steeped in intrigue, duplicity, and nefarious figures, all told with a cynicism well matched to the age… imagination and bold interpretation and a tart writing style.” —Baltimore Sun

“A riveting tale of soured friendships, casually exterminated lives and treachery run amok.” —Denver Post

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