Description
This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we’re diving into the 2012 HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn. It’s all about the messy relationship between war reporter Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway. We get into the Spanish Civil War (and yes, the movie really drags its feet before getting to WWII), and honestly, we’re not sure either of them is all that likable. Plus, we talk about Caroline Moorehead’s biography Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life, Martha’s own novel Point of No Return, and her travel memoir, Travels with Myself and Another.
Hemingway & Gellhorn trailer
Other episodes mentioned in this episode
When making an episode about war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, it’s only fair we also refer you to our episode about war correspondent Lee Miller.
Book Recs
Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life by Caroline Moorehead is a biography that offers a vivid and well researched portrait of Martha Gellhorn. The author knew Gellhorn personally through her mother, which brings intimacy and deep insight. While Gellhorn’s story is a little hard to get into (perhaps because we find her hard to like), we recommend this book over the movie if you want to learn more about her.
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Point of No Return by Martha Gellhorn is her wartime novel. It follows a U.S. Army infantry battalion during the last months of World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge and the discovery of a Nazi death camp. It centers on Jacob Levy, a Jewish soldier from St. Louis confronting the horrors of Dachau and grappling with identity and moral responsibility.
*This is an affiliate link. If you buy through this link, we get a small percentage, and you get a book and help Rosie stay afloat. Thank you!
Travels with Myself and Another: Five Journeys from Hell by Martha Gellhorn is her travel memoir that chronicles five horror journeys from China to Africa, the Caribbean, and Moscow during the Sino‑Japanese War and beyond. She’s selfaware and funny as a travel writer, and she refers to an unnamed “unwilling companion,” widely understood to be Ernest Hemingway, giving you yet another insight into their relationship even though the book is very much not about him.
