The Ambulance Drivers

Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War

By: James McGrath Morris

Narrated by: Dean Temple

After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense twenty-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war.

Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps. When the war was over, both men knew they had to write about it; they had to give voice to what they felt about war and life.

Their friendship and collaboration developed through the peace of the 1920s and 1930s, as Hemingway's novels soared to success while Dos Passos penned the greatest antiwar novel of his generation, Three Soldiers. In war, Hemingway found adventure, women, and a cause. Dos Passos saw only oppression and futility. Their different visions eventually turned their private friendship into a bitter public fight, fueled by money, jealousy, and lust.

Rich in evocative detail -- from Paris cafes to the Austrian Alps, from the streets of Pamplona to the waters of Key West -- The Ambulance Drivers is a biography of a turbulent friendship between two of the century's greatest writers, and an illustration of how war both inspires and destroys, unites and divides.

Critic reviews

"The story of the close yet volatile friendship between John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway...[A] lively biography of their relationship...A welcome new look at Dos Passos and another sad chapter in the life of Hemingway."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Two of the most significant writers of their generation, John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway, are described by Morris in his evocative, lively volume about how differently they emerged from the crucible of WWI...Morris's narrative demonstrates how, despite jealousies and differences, the two men found common ground...Dos Passos will be the less recognizable name to most readers, and Morris does a great service by reinserting him into the picture of post-WWI American writers."
—Publishers Weekly

"Morris's evocative writing and finely tuned research brings alive the richness of the past--the thronging cafes of Paris, the mortared trenches of Italy, the bullfights of Pamplona, the sun-bleached houses of Key West--as well as the complex personalities of these two great American writers. A tragic story, beautifully written and compulsively readable."--Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God

"The Ambulance Drivers is one of those rare and gratifying books that seamlessly drops gems of insight on history, art, and politics into a taut and suspenseful story of one of the great literary friendships of the twentieth century."--Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Most Famous Man in America

"Here is a story of war, love, and politics writ large, a story of two literary lions trapped in a double-helix relationship more powerful than either will admit. In this intricately braided dual biography, Morris shows us how the two novelists needed each other, even as they differed--often drastically so--in the way they negotiated the gravitational forces of their times."--Hampton Sides, bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice and Ghost Soldiers

"In this ingenious dual narrative, James McGrath Morris gives us two lives in high contrast, rendering sharp, revelatory portraits of literary icons we thought we already knew. Writing with deep knowledge and sympathy, Morris has created something rare and fresh: a biography of a friendship."--Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast

"Intimate, vivid, and humane, The Ambulance Drivers propels readers through the intersecting lives of two of our greatest writers. Never have Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos seemed so real or so important as in James McGrath Morris's account of their passage through the Great War and the rise of fascism."--T.J. Stiles, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Custer's Trials

Excellent, granular and objective

Enlightening description of two authors whose were interwoven only to diverge in such spitefulness that reveals the human behind the historical facade.

Narrator drops the end of each sentence.

Rich stories of two important writers and their tangled friendship spanning two world wars and the Spanish Civil War. Their shifting and conflicting ideology, romances, adventures and writing assignments are set on a world stage.
Enjoyable.

insights into two very important authors

I appreciated the detail and the letters that went into analyzing the relationship between Hemingway and Dos Passos I thought that the description about Hemingway was a little lacking having studied Hemingway more and also Dos Passos. Hemingway Ihad additional associations that were not revealed in this audiobook, Hemingway probably had connections with the OSS and elements of the deep state in the US. government which explains a lot of his politics at the end and possibly also explains his suicide. The account of Dos Passos fleeing from the Stalinists in Spain is actually quite gripping but it was skipped over in this version, otherwise I really enjoyed the book and I thought the reader did an excellent job

Morris always delivers interesting biographies...

...that I might not normally read--and this is another one. I first read/listened to The Rose Man of Sing Sing (which remains my favorite), something I'd have never found on my own but it was recommended to me so I listened! Now, if Morris writes it, I'll read it right away.

I knew little about Hemingway (other than reading some of his work) and even less about Dos Passos, so not only did I learn about the two men, but what I always appreciate about Morris is how he puts everything into the wider historical context.

There's a little bit of everything in this book: War, friendship, rivalry, marriage, what it means to be a writer, history, etc. I was really fascinated by the ambulance drivers in general; it's a part of WW1 that I knew nothing about!

Lifeless writing, lifeless narration

What disappointed you about The Ambulance Drivers?

Sorry, but I couldn't get past the feeling that the narrator was bored with what he was reading. The longer he read, the more I lost whatever interest I had in the book.

Would you be willing to try another one of Dean Temple’s performances?

Let me put it this way: no.

On and Off Friends

After telling myself I would not read any more books about Ernest Hemingway, I listened to this one. It focused on the relationship between Dos Passos and Hemingway after they met during WWI, as competing authors and peripherally their other friends and authors.