
The Ambulance Drivers
Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War
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Narrated by:
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Dean Temple
After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense 20-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war. Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps. When the war was over, both men knew they had to write about it; they had to give voice to what they felt about war and life. Their friendship and collaboration developed through the peace of the 1920s and 1930s, as Hemingway's novels soared to success while Dos Passos penned the greatest antiwar novel of his generation, Three Soldiers.
In war, Hemingway found adventure, women, and a cause. Dos Passos saw only oppression and futility. Their different visions eventually turned their private friendship into a bitter public fight, fueled by money, jealousy, and lust. Rich in evocative detail - from Paris cafes to the Austrian Alps, from the streets of Pamplona to the waters of Key West - The Ambulance Drivers is a biography of a turbulent friendship between two of the century's greatest writers, and an illustration of how war both inspires and destroys, unites, and divides.
©2017 James McGrath Morris (P)2017 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
Excellent, granular and objective
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Enjoyable.
Narrator drops the end of each sentence.
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insights into two very important authors
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I knew little about Hemingway (other than reading some of his work) and even less about Dos Passos, so not only did I learn about the two men, but what I always appreciate about Morris is how he puts everything into the wider historical context.
There's a little bit of everything in this book: War, friendship, rivalry, marriage, what it means to be a writer, history, etc. I was really fascinated by the ambulance drivers in general; it's a part of WW1 that I knew nothing about!
Morris always delivers interesting biographies...
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What disappointed you about The Ambulance Drivers?
Sorry, but I couldn't get past the feeling that the narrator was bored with what he was reading. The longer he read, the more I lost whatever interest I had in the book.Would you be willing to try another one of Dean Temple’s performances?
Let me put it this way: no.Lifeless writing, lifeless narration
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On and Off Friends
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