Review of The Dangerous Summer
I'm glad that The Dangerous Summer is more novella than novel: it's just as long as it needs to be and no longer. (James Michener's introduction tells us that Hemingway originally wrote some 120,000 words, which were cut to 70,000 for publication in Life magazine in 1960; the published version which I read is 45,000 words. ) Michener's introduction is interesting in its own right. Among other things, he makes it clear that we should go into the book expecting Hemingway to be partial to Antonio Ordóñez over his brother-in-law and rival, Luis Miguel Dominguín. It's possible to read the book against that interpretation, but I think Michener's reading holds up.