I’m the nephew of his chief villain in this book. (Other than Hemingway, whom he doesn’t understand at all.) And reading it could follow the thread of development of his thought. Building an edifice of truth on conjecture and the subjective impressions of others. Allowing his own feelings to rise to the surface rather than subjugate them to what actually happened: to what he knows and doesn’t know, rather than invent when it helps him move his polemic forward. He didn’t even spell the name of his chief villain correctly: Quintanilla rather than Quintinilla.

This is not the way to write history. And, sadly, this subjective conjecture passed off as fact can form the basis of the permanent record. Though there have been some critics who have seen through his lies.

One more thing. My father, the artist Luis Quintanilla, Pepe’s brother, remaiined good friends with Dos Passos for several years after the Spanish Civil War.

Interesting that Dos retained an amicable relationship with such a villain.