<div>
<div>In the first book of its kind, Joseph Fruscione examines the contentious relationship of two titans of American modernism-William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. At times, each voiced a shared literary and professional respect; at other times, each thought himself the superior craftsman and spoke of the other disparagingly. Their rivalry was rich, nuanced, and vexed, embodying various attitudes-one-upmanship, respect, criticism, and praise. Their intertextual contest-what we might call their modernist dialectic-was manifested textually through their fiction, nonfiction, letters, Nobel Prize addresses, and spoken remarks.</div>
<div>Their intertextual relationship was highly significant for both authors: it was unusual for the reclusive Faulkner to engage so directly and so often with a contemporary, and for the hypercompetitive Hemingway to admit respect for-and possible inferiority to-a rival writer. Their joint awareness spawned an influential, allusive, and sparring intertext in which each had a psychocompetitive hold on the other. <i>Faulkner and Hemingway: Biography of a Literary Rivalry</i>-part analytical study, part literary biography-illustrates how their artistic paths and performed masculinities clashed frequently, as the authors measured themselves against each other and engendered a mutual psychological influence.</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
<div>Although previous scholarship has noted particular flare-ups and textual similarities, most of it has tended to be more implicit in outlining the broader narrative of Faulkner and Hemingway as longtime rivals. Building on such scholarship, <i>Faulkner and Hemingway</i> offers a more overt study of how these authors' published and archival work traces a sequence of psychological influence, cross-textual reference, and gender performance over some three decades.</div>
</div>