The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by Martin
Zehr.

~~~~~

BOOK REVIEW


_The Hemingway Files_ by H. K. Bush. Blank Slate Press, 2017. Pp. 357.
Paperback. $15.95. ISBN 978-1-943075-32-4.


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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
Martin Zehr


The genre of literal literary thriller may be somewhat restricted, a
notable exception being Poe's "The Purloined Letter," or even an oxymoron,
but H. K. Bush's _The Hemingway Files_ is well-crafted, strong testimony to
its validity, richness and attraction. The action in this book is more
internalized than in one of Jonathan Kellerman's popular mysteries, but the
building tension and story convolutions are no less compelling. Bush's
ability to write prose that pulls the reader, willingly, and eagerly, into
multiple exotic cultures of ethnicity, history and literary studies, with
interwoven elements of romance, mystery, and adventure, renders this novel
a _tour-de-force_ begging the question, where has this novelist been hiding
in plain sight?


Bush's novel is a frame story, narrated by English professor Martin Dean,
who relates the tale of his deceased former student Jack Springs. The novel
begins with a package which arrives at Dean's university office containing,
among other intriguing items, a manuscript of Springs's unpublished story,
"a box full of nothing but words," to quote the dead Springs. As Dean
describes it, "There may have been madness in the box--but as I eventually
learned, method as well"--a series of more mysterious boxes within the box,
each to be opened in chronological order with one labeled "Open me last,
after reading the story." The story unfolds with revelations about an
enigmatic Japanese Professor Goto of American literature who is also a
well-heeled literary collector. Goto, the aged scion of a Japanese family
of established wealth and power has a life-long interest, not only in the
words of the great writers, but in the original letters and editions of
their works that are the tangible representations of his passion, which
crosses the line into obsession. Jack Springs, a recent PhD searching for a
position, is invited to enter this world through a teaching fellowship in
Japan which, unknown to him, has been engineered through the influence of
powers which will impose strictures on his life and subject him to moral
dilemmas beyond his imagining.


An important element in this tale is what Goto terms the "narcotic" of
collecting, "very much like a kind of religion . . ." (p.184), impelling
him to enlist his vast network of resources in search of literary
artifacts. It is a search Goto likens to that of Ahab's hunt for the white
whale, tacit acknowledgement of the focused nature of obsession, a force
that has the potential to blur the boundaries of morality. Goto's
acquisitions include rare first editions of American literary classics,
unpublished manuscripts and previously unknown letters, including a cache
of correspondence between Mark Twain and his friend and pastor Joseph
Twichell, that empower Goto with their secrets. If Goto's methods are at
times questionable, conscripting Jack Springs, through their mentor-student
relationship into acts raising ethical quandaries, his passion is at least
understandable. Goto relishes his capacity to connect himself on a
sometimes intimate level with giants like Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway,
and Mark Twain, just as a music collector, playing an original 78 pressing
of Sun 209, with its ingrooved hisses and pops, replicates the thrill of
the Memphis teenager being enthralled by the same succession of rhythmic
wailings during hot summer nights in 1954, listening to Elvis singing
"That's All Right."


One of the most enjoyable facets of this novel for this reader is the
immersion in Japanese culture, history, etiquette and language, which
provide the unique backdrop for Bush's tale. A budding romance between Jack
Springs and Mika, niece of Professor Goto, is only one of the additional
impelling plot elements. Insights into Japanese culture, literary
scholarship, and obsessive collecting are set against the contrasting
background panoramas of old Japan, in the Kobe region, modern Tokyo, and
nearly inaccessible mountain monastic retreats. And, as if to underscore
the authenticity of the Japanese experience, the reader, through Jack's
words, has an insider's view of the horrific chain of events and
devastating destruction and death accompanying the great Kobe earthquake.


The romance between Jack Springs and Mika, niece of the godfather-mentor
Goto, is as impelling as any of the plot elements of _The Hemingway Files_
and underscores the clash of cultures that is a critical component of the
novel. Their mutual attraction builds slowly and steadily within the
restrictions of well-defined cultural boundaries that have thwarted
Oriental-Occidental love matches since Puccini’s _Madame Butterfly_ or
James Michener’s _Sayonara_ (1954), later made into a film (1957) starring
Marlon Brando, also set in the Kobe area of Japan.


The cross-currents of interest in Japanese and American literature, one of
the primary structural elements of Bush's novel, are well known to many
Mark Twain scholars. Anyone attending the quadrennial international
conferences on Twain studies held in Elmira, New York, has witnessed the
strong interest in Mark Twain by Japanese scholars and is aware of the
not-so-coincidental fact that one of three journals devoted exclusively to
Twain scholarship, _Mark Twain Studies_, is published in Japan. Readers of
this review may also be aware of one of the classics of Twain-related
cross-cultural scholarship, _Mark Twain in Japan_ (2005), by Professor
Tsuyoshi Ishihara of Tokyo’s Waseda University.


Bush, who is known to most Mark Twain Forum subscribers as "Hal" is a
professor of English at Saint Louis University, a former Fulbright Senior
Scholar in Freiburg, Germany, and formerly Senior Fellow at Waseda
Institute of Advanced Study in Tokyo. A scholar in the area of Mark Twain
studies, he is the author of _Mark Twain and the Spiritual Crisis of His
Age_ (2007) and _Continuing Bonds with the Dead: Parental Grief and
Nineteenth-Century American Authors_ (2016). _The Hemingway Files_ is his
first novel.

Without his professional immersion in the world of literary scholarship,
Bush may not have been equipped to write a novel with such an exquisite eye
for detail set in the world of academics. On the other hand, the pacing and
rhythm of Bush's tale and his ability to slowly and steadily create and
maintain the tension and intrigue pervading _The Hemingway Files_ suggests
a possible career alternative should his day job at the university not work
out. It would be tempting to label this novel a literary masterpiece, but
that would be damning with faint praise. This novel is a great story, an
intriguing mystery with well-crafted character studies in exotic locations.
The experience of reading this work elicits a hearty "Domo Arigato."

_____


ABOUT THE REVIEWER:

Martin Zehr is a psychologist at the Marion Bloch Neuroscience Institute in
Kansas City, Missouri. His novel, _The Desplazados_, was published in 2017
and was described by _Kirkus Reviews_ as "A journey of reawakening and
self-acceptance, well worth the trip."