After securing her book deal through Kingston WritersFest in 2022, Marianne K. Miller, JD ’80, returned to the festival to share her perspective on Ernest Hemingway and historical fiction.
Miller, a Queen’s University Law alumna, published her debut novel We Were the Bullfighters in May 2024. On September 27, she spoke at Kingston WritersFest in a talk moderated by The Kingston Whig Standard reporter Peter Hendra.
The novel explores Ernest Hemingway’s early career as a reporter for The Toronto Star and follows his first assignment in Kingston, covering the escape of five inmates from Kingston Penitentiary. The narrative alternates between Hemingway’s perspective and that of Norman “Red” Ryan, one of the escapees.
During her talk, Miller discussed her extensive research for the book, which involved immersing herself in books, news articles from the time period, and letters written by Hemingway. She described Hemingway in 1923 as a man “trapped by circumstance.” Before he wrote multiple acclaimed novels and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953, he was in a new job and was about to become a father. “And on his first day, he gets to cover someone who risked everything to be free,” Miller said.
In an interview with The Journal, Miller shared more about the novel and her writing journey. “I really hope people appreciate how much fact is in that book,” she said.
Although Miller added some moments that are pure fiction, she wanted them to be based on reality and as historically accurate as possible. “Certainly, with Hemingway, I wanted to be as true to the facts as I could be,” Miller added.
Beyond her research at the City of Ottawa Archives and the JFK Library in Boston, Miller incorporated elements of her own life into the novel. For example, she drew inspiration from her mother’s experience singing in a Lutheran church choir, which she mirrored in Red Ryan’s backstory.
“My mother was a Catholic but there was a Lutheran church at the corner [of her street], and she used to sing in the choir. So, I had Red Ryan say he used to sing in the German church choir,” Miller said.
Miller’s fascination with Hemingway began when she first read The Sun Also Rises. “It was probably more the description of Spain than the things that were going on in that book. I think maybe I was young enough that some of it was going over my head,” she explained. “And then when I went to Spain, it was like he described it.”
Miller also described Hemingway’s challenges as a reporter for The Toronto Star. Despite facing tough demands from newspaper executives, Hemingway always delivered quality work.
“I think even though he was unhappy, he always did a good job. I don’t think he ever said ‘They’re messing with me. Screw them. I can phone it in.’ Which he probably could have done. But I think he always cared, and he always tried to make it the best story that he could make it,” Miller said.
“Part of what I like about this story is, here’s this guy who becomes mega-famous, who’s just like every other writer, trying to get noticed,” Miller said.
Miller’s own writing journey began in a creative writing class at the University of Toronto. “We had to do some exercise where we had to write about the house we grew up in […] and he [Miller’s instructor] put a big check mark on mine and said, ‘I really like your writing.’ That was very encouraging,” she said.
Choosing between Latin and creative writing at the University of Toronto, Miller opted for the latter because it scared her more. Before her novel, she wrote short stories, and she described the transition as a “shift in pace.”
“When you’re used to writing short stories, a novel feels very luxurious because you have all this time, all these pages that you can write. And the flip side of that is you have all these pages that you have to write,” Miller said.
Miller also ired Hemingway’s discipline, noting that while he had talent, he homed in on it with practice. “You have to , this is a 24 year-old guy,” Miller said about Hemingway during timeframe of her novel. “He had talent, but he worked on it too.”
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