Michael Gilmore’s Life in Objects

Michael Gilmore’s tenure at the Ransom Center began in 1982, after a transfer from UT’s Perry-Castañeda Library on the advice of a friend. “That’s how I ended up over here with rare books and manuscripts,” he says. “It was just a delight.”

Through it all, he’s been a passionate advocate for the extraordinary objects in the collections. After eighteen years at the Center, Gilmore retired on June 16, 2023 from his role as Visual Materials Circulation Coordinator in the Reading and Viewing Room.

I asked Gilmore to show me his favorite item: a book from the collection of Ernest Hemingway, from a box of materials that was kept sealed until 25 years after his death. Gilmore was the one to catalog it.

“As I was going through these books, I saw one with a broken binding,” Gilmore said. “And I’m sitting there amazed because I thought Hemingway took better care of his books. Then, when I picked it up and looked at the title on the spine, I immediately thought to myself, ‘No, this can’t be it.’ And it was.”

The book was Art and the Life of Action by Max Eastman. Discovering a battered copy of this book among Hemingway’s belongings wouldn’t be remarkable were it not for the story behind this particular copy. Gilmore describes an encounter between Eastman and Hemingway in the office of his editor, Max Perkins, when Hemingway remembered that Eastman had written a scathing review of his book Death in the Afternoon.

“He plucked one of Eastman’s books off Perkins’ shelf, because he’s a memoirist and also, obviously, a Scribner’s author. Hemingway started reading parts from the essay. Eastman accused Hemingway of being in the false hair on your chest school of writing and he also indicated that the way Hemingway wrote was due to his lack of virility in the boudoir. As this irked Hemingway more and more, he worked himself up into a lather. When he came across the false hair on your chest school of writing, Hemingway reached over and started to unbutton Eastman’s shirt, and as Perkins said, it was as bare as a baby’s bottom. Hemingway then pulled his own shirt open. And yes, it was rather a hairy chest. But then Hemingway remembered the part about performance and snapped the book shut on Eastman’s face. And that accounts for the broken binding.”

All of this would be little more than a story, adding to the myth of Hemingway, without the book, which is in fact signed and dated August 11, 1937 by Max Eastman as a witness. On the front paper there is an inscription by Hemingway – an illustration of the paw of a six-toed cat with the words, “This is the book I busted on Max, (the Prick) Eastman’s nose, I surely hope he burns forever in some hell of his own digging. Ernest Hemingway.”

Describing his years at the Center, Gilmore said, “I tell my wife that I see something amazing every day. It’s possible to come to work and not see something amazing, but if it happens two days in a row, it’s probably time to go do something mindless at a factory.” He has been a faithful steward of both the amazing objects and their stories, and his knowledgeable presence in the Reading and Viewing Room will be missed by all.