Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War

The tragic Spanish Civil War (1936–39) began as a rebellion of the military against the elected government and became a rehearsal for world war. The Nazis supplied Gen. Francisco Franco's Nationalists with bomber planes while Soviet Russia armed the Loyalists, defending the Spanish Republic. In the midst of this, left-leaning journalists and photographers flocked to besieged Madrid's Hotel Florida to report on the Loyalist fight against Fascism. Popular biographer Vaill (Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy—a Lost Generation Love Story) here follows three leftist couples caught up in the heroic but doomed Loyalist cause. Most prominent are literary lion Ernest Hemingway and his new girlfriend, reporter Martha Gellhorn. Their ego-driven journalism offers some comic relief (i.e., celebrity writers slumming near the front). Vaill goes easier on the less glamorous anti-fascists, e.g., photographer Robert Capa and his partner, Gerda Taro. The only Spaniard in the bunch is writer Arturo Barea, who managed the Madrid press office with Viennese Ilsa Kulcsar. All of them romanticized the Loyalist cause while ignoring its brutal Soviet leadership. A victory by either side would in fact be dangerous for Spain. Vaill mines memoirs of the period for her gossipy popular history, full of set-piece scenes that include the thoughts and feelings of characters (but there's no invented dialog). Her gift for character portrayal keeps the book moving along, particularly with such fleeting figures as novelists John Dos Passos and Josephine Herbst.