The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War

The intertwined story of the complex and tumultuous friendship between two literary titans - Hemingway and Dos Passos - whose shared war experiences offer an untapped and revealing window into the role war played in their lives and the literature of the "Lost Generation" that would shape American culture in the twentieth century.

Rich in evocative detail--from Paris cafes to Austrian chateaus, from the streets of Pamplona to the waters of Key West--THE AMBULANCE DRIVERS tells the story of two aspiring writers, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, who met in World War I and forged a twenty-year friendship that produced some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a generation shaken by war.

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 nasty public fight, fueled by money, jealousy, and lust. This is not only a biography of the turbulent friendship between two of the century's greatest writers but also an illustration of how war inspires and destroys, unites and divides.