To fight was great, to fish was great, and jokes about Hamilton were hacky even in 1920. Reading Ernest Hemingway’s early stories for the Toronto Star, you see a bit emerging of the famously lean, direct writer he’d become — but slowly, and through some resistance.
To show where the Star Weekly edition had him begin, take his first (unbylined) piece, published on Valentine’s Day 1920, about a group of Toronto women arranging to circulate paintings among themselves. Compared to vintage Hemingway fiction, the Star has him sounding downright florid:
