by Amanda Vaill
During the Spanish Civil War, Madrid’s posh Hotel Florida hosted a motley
collection of mostly foreign artists, intellectuals, journalists, war tourists and
spies. The fighting was never more than a few miles away, and every so often a Fascist
shell would blow out some windows or kill a pedestrian in the street below. For
a taste of real action, you could drive out to the front after breakfast and still
make it back in time for dinner and drinks.
Ernest Hemingway stayed at the Florida, of course, and came away with a
play (The Fifth Column), a novel (For Whom the Bell Tolls), a bundle of
short pieces, and a third Mrs. Hemingway. Amanda Vaill has written about
Hemingway before and clearly has little love for him; here he is a boor and a
dupe who never realized Soviet agents were playing him like a fiddle. He and
Martha Gellhorn are the famous pair among the three couples featured in Vaill’s
excellent Hotel Florida, but what the
others might lack in name recognition is more than made up for in drama.
Photography or history buffs may be vaguely familiar with the doomed
romance of photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, but Vaill brings them
vividly to life with fresh details from friends and family. Though Capa and
Taro’s story is pure big-screen material, Vaill manages to keep a lid on the
melodrama without muting either the beauty or the horror of their days together.
Loyalist press officers Arturo Barea and Ilsa
Kulcsar round out Vaill’s
sextet, and in some ways their story is the most gripping. Neither consumed by
Capa and Taro’s youthful audacity nor insulated by the wealth, fame and
American passports that shielded Hemingway and Gellhorn, Barea and Kulcsar demonstrate
that civil war can kindle revolutionary passions (both political and personal) in
the most ordinary hearts. Barea and Kulcsar’s story enthralls because they are
unexceptional individuals caught up in exceptional times and—unlike their
famous counterparts—the outcome is always in doubt.
Hotel Florida is
well-researched, and Vaill’s deft exploitation of new or little-known sources gives
it an unexpected richness. The brisk narration, eye for detail and abundant use
of dialogue had me checking the spine label to see whether it is historical
fiction or remarkably well-written history. Hotel
Florida is history, but history with living flesh newly hung upon its dry
and dusty bones.
Review by Don Beistle
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