Chink Dorman-Smith remains a fascinating and controversial enigma.
British general and passionate Irish nationalist; revered by Auchinleck; sacked by Churchill; Hemingway's lifelong hero and Montgomery's villain, he was many things to many different people.
Chink is the acclaimed biography of the brilliant soldier who outwitted Rommel at the First Battle of Alamein and helped turn the tide for the British army - only to fall into disgrace and obscurity. It is the larger-than-life story of the man who would continue to inspire Hemingway's imagination, from A Moveable Feast to Across the River and into the Trees.
Lavinia Greacen vividly brings to life a man who defied convention, both in his private life and his public career, to become the most original military thinker of his time.
Praise for Chink: 'An unexpected and utter joy to read' - Financial Times
'Enthralling' - The Mail on Sunday
'Friend of Hemingway, dandy, lover and tactician, Chink is marvellously retrieved here' - Sunday Times Books of the Year
'Chink, at the heart of the international bohemian world, was a figure as incongruous as David Niven strolling into a novel by Dostoyevsky. Hemingway had a lasting admiration for his friend and repeatedly wove elements of him into his fictions over more than 30 years. But Chink's real-life story, as told by Lavinia Greacen, is a stranger and more poignant tale than anything the novelist made of it' - The Times
Born and educated in England, Lavinia Greacen lives in a whitewashed house in the Dublin mountains, and her widely-praised biographies have a blend of Irish and English influences. As well as Chink, her subjects include the Booker winner J.G. Farrell, author of Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur, and The Singapore Grip.
