Who was Ernest Hemingway anyway? One "Pappy" Markham, a 93-year-old Key West derelict, surfaces with an outrageous story about the death of the great author. He's written (so he claims) a scandalous Lost Generation memoir in which he explains how and why he assassinated "Hemmy," his onetime pal. Enticed by a 5 page sample (the murder scene), publishers Warren & Dudge, bite hard, dispatching hack biographer Elliot McGuire to Key West to bring back the full manuscript. Face to face with the "memoirist," McGuire discovers nothing in Pappy's world is as it seems. Under the influence of Pappy's deranged voice and charismatic personality, McGuire struggles to maintain a semblance of literary integrity as events put the two on a collision course that threatens his very sanity.