Short Story Review Ernest Hemingway The Killers

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Spoiler alerts – 1927 The story features Nick Adams, a character who turns up in various Hemmingway stories. He is among the diners at a prohibition era Illinois café, run by a man called George. Two gangsters enter, unhappy from the outset that the meals they order are not on the menu until much later in the evening. They make it clear that they are hoping to meet Ole Andreson, a Swedish boxer who usually dines at the café. They are contract killers. We are never told who hired them or why. It soon becomes apparent that they are out to kill Andreson, and they take Adams and the café’s cook hostage, tying them up together in the kitchen. Andreson doesn’t turn up, so the killers leave the café. Adams knows where the boxer lives and goes to his house to warn him that someone wants him dead, but the old boxer just lies on is bed in his clothes, waiting and refuses to hide or leave town. Adams goes back to the café to tell the others the news. Nothing is explained, quite deliberately. The boxer seems to expect death, and yet we never find out why. A mysterious story that nevertheless grips. In 1984, some unpublished Hemingway stories surfaced. In one, A Matter Of Colour, a boxer called The Swede fails to throw a fight properly and ends up on a gangster’s hitman contract. It could be the same Swedish boxer. The story has been filmed twice, first in 1946, starring Burt Lancaster in his first major role. The 1964 remake starring Lee Marvin and Angie Dickenson is notable for providing the last movie appearance for Ronald Reagan before he went into full time politics. Arthur Chappell