Hemingway A Very Short Story

If Berg's books seem familiar ... it's because she has family in Minnesota and ...

Plenty of readers know Elizabeth Berg — best-selling author of more than 20 novels and story collections and two works of nonfiction. Her novel 'Open House' was an Oprah Book Club selection and the basis for a TV movie, as were her novels 'Range of Motion,' 'Say When' and 'A Very Married Christmas.'

What many readers don't know is that Berg, born at the old Miller hospital 62 years ago, lived in the St. Paul area with her parents until she was 3 years old. Her grandparents lived in St. Paul and Stillwater and her parents, Art and Jeanne Hoff, just moved into EagleCrest Senior Housing in Roseville. Her Uncle Frank started Hoff Jewelers, where her dad worked as a watchmaker after he retired from a career in the military.

"Everybody's from Minnesota," Berg says with a laugh when she's asked about her family.

Most fun for local readers is that John Marsh, one of the protagonists of her new novel, "Once Upon a Time, There Was You," was inspired by her longtime friend John Rupp, one of St. Paul's best-known developers.

Berg's story centers on Marsh, his former wife, Irene, and their 18-year-old daughter, Sadie. John and Irene knew on their wedding day that they weren't meant for each other, and eventually divorced. They have a cool, distant relationship, with John living in St. Paul and Irene and Sadie in San Francisco. When Sadie experiences a crisis, her parents are thrown together.

"My books are a mixture of humor and pathos," Berg says. "This one is about love in all its forms, about accepting who you are, a novel of discovery of self. I wondered what would happen when two divorced people are back under the same roof. Would they remember what they loved about one another? What they hated? Could they get back together after so many years?"

Berg talked about her life and work from her home in Oak Park, outside of Chicago, where she lives three doors down from the house where Ernest Hemingway grew up.

Since Berg's father was "a lifer in the Army," her family moved around the country when she was growing up, but summers were spent in Minnesota.

Berg met John Rupp when they were freshmen at the University of Minnesota.

"It was my first night as a waitress at The Valli (restaurant and bar) in Dinkytown," she recalls.

"I was a terrible, clumsy waitress. John and a friend were my customers and I was a nervous wreck. John told me to calm down. I think he gave me a ride back to the dorm. He was such a cool guy.

Randomness: A VERY SHORT STORY (Hemingway)

One hot evening in Padua they carried him up onto the roof and he could look out over the top of the town. There were chimney swifts in the sky. After a while it got dark and the searchlights came out. The others went down and took the bottles with them. He and Luz could hear them below on the balcony. Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the hot night. Luz stayed on night duty for three months. They were glad to let her. When they operated on him she prepared him for the operating table; and they had a joke about friend or enema. He went under the anaesthetic holding tight on to himself so he would not blab about anything during the silly, talky time. After he got on crutches he used to take the temperatures so Luz would not have to get up from the bed. There were only a few patients, and they all knew about it. They all liked Luz. As he walked back along the halls he thought of Luz in his bed. Before he went back to the front they went into the Duomo and prayed. It was dim and quiet, and there were other people praying. They wanted to get married, but there was not enough time for the banns, and neither of them had birth certificates. They felt as though they were married, but they wanted everyone to know about it, and to make it so they could not lose it. After the armistice they agreed he should go home to get a job so they might be married. Luz would not come home until he had a good job and could come to New York to meet her. It was understood he would not drink, and he did not want to see his friends or anyone in the States. Only to get a job and be married. On the train from Padua to Milan they quarreled about her not being willing to come home at once. When they had to say good-bye, in the station at Milan, they kissed good-bye, but were not finished with the quarrel. He felt sick about saying good-bye like that. He went to America on a boat from Genoa. Luz went back to Pordonone to open a hospital. It was lonely and rainy there, and there was a battalion of arditi quartered in the town. Living in the muddy, rainy town in the winter, the major of the battalion made love to Luz, and she had never known Italians before, and finally wrote to the States that theirs had only been a boy and girl affair. She was sorry, and she knew he would probably not be able to understand, but might some day forgive her, and be grateful to her, and she expected, absolutely unexpectedly, to be married in the spring.

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