The John McCain of “Faith of My Fathers,” [one of his books] … bears more than a little resemblance to the fictional Robert Jordan of “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” the Hemingway hero Mr. McCain later celebrated in another book with Mr. Salter, “Worth the Fighting For,” which was named for a line of Jordan’s dying thoughts.He was “a man who would risk his life but never his honor,” Mr. McCain wrote with Mr. Salter, a model of “how a great man should style himself.”
Source:
David Kirkpatrick, Writing Memoir, McCain found a Narrative for Life, NY Times, 12 October 2008.
Dr Geoff Pound
Image: John McCain and Ernest Hemingway.