Torrents of Spring

The Nobel Prize–winning author delivers “full-blooded comedy, with a sting of satire at the expense of certain literary affectations,” in this early work (The New York Times).

Rumored to have been written in ten days to break a contract with his publisher, Ernest Hemingway’s The Torrents of Spring sets out to mock the reigning literary conventions of the time, including the novels of Hemingway’s own mentor, Sherwood Anderson. With appearances by F. Scott Fitzgerald and asides by Hemingway himself, it takes readers on a comedic journey featuring a pair of coworkers at a pump factory in Michigan.

Scripps O’Neil likes to drink with his wife, but he loses both her and his daughter. His goal is to make it to Chicago, where he can find happiness and success, but he never gets that far. Yogi Johnson is a veteran of the First World War who once spent two glorious weeks in Paris with a mysterious woman. Now, he is unable to muster up any interest in such things as romance. As Scripps falls in and out of love and Yogi searches for anything to cure his ambivalence, The Torrents of Spring offers a window into the acerbic mind of one of America’s greatest writers.