I have aconfession to make. I’m just now reading Papa Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream for the first time. It’s one I’ve put off, since he wasn’t alive to complete the editing and rewriting process. The thought of anyone besides the master – his last wife and publisher, in this case – preparing his unfinished manuscript for publication just scares me. The book got a lot of good press, but it’s Hemingway. The reviews will be either good or bad, mostly good, with none in between.

One of Papa’s...