Men Without Women
Classics
Arrow Books
1927
130
A second collection of short stories that once again establish Hemingway as a novelist of exceptional power. Hemingway's men are bullfighters and boxers, hired hands and hard drinkers, gangsters and gunmen. Each of their stories deals with masculine toughness, unsoftened by woman's hand. Incisive, hard edged, pared down to the bare minimum, they are classic Hemingway territory.
Although Hemingway has written more short story collections than novels, he still gets it wrong sometimes. This rather fractured collection has more troughs than crests and despite its obvious experiments with form it is still recognisably Hemingway. The descriptions of the predominantly Spanish setting and lifestyle are the high point of an otherwise disappointing collection. 
