I've been doing some research into the works of the late Gene Hill recently and I came upon the story he wrote entitled "Unpacking Some Memories of Africa." When I read it, I was stunned at the beauty of Hill's words in describing the hunt and the total African hunting experience.

There's a link to the article below, but if it does not work, simply Google "Unpacking some memories of Africa, Gene Hill". What you will get is PDF document with several of Hill's articles on it. Scroll down to Page 13 to find the one in question.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ke3cB4KhTPgC&pg=PP11&l...-LEvGIKlodiKBs&hl=en

Is this the same late Gene Hill that was the gundog editor for one of the national hunting magazines? If so, his writings are superb.

Yes, it's the same guy. He had a real clarity of thought and an ability to put that on paper, which I always found interesting.

Personally, I find his writings to be superior to Hemingway and Ruark. I wish he would have written more about big game hunting.

Very elegant. Makes me look forward to next year, with Masailand painfully slowly getting closer.

Thank you for sharing that writing with us. It has been too long since I have read his work. Africa is such a wonderful place!!!!

For my money, Gene Hill was the best outdoor writer that ever coaxed coherent sentences from a manual typewriter. No other writer ever was ever able to genuinely "get to me" like Hill.

I just finished a full-length essay-style article on him and mailed it off today. If it gets published, I'll link it.

Wow, that was just terrific. Gene Hill was not just a great outdoor writer, he was a great writer period. I really don't see anyone taking his place any time soon.

Wow, they don't make it easy to print that short story.

But success is MINE!

Thanks for posting. I enjoyed that.

Excellent!

When I was stationed at McGuire AFB in New Jersey I had a friend, an Army Captain, who had know Gene for quite some time and he offered to introduce me to him the next time we were at the range together.

I found him to be polite but not really at ease with people he didn't know and I was struck by an air of melancholy that he seemed to carry with him. He reminded me of someone recovering from a long illness who wasn't sure if he getting better or not.

When I mentioned it to my friend on the way home he just shrugged his shoulders and said Gene was like that sometimes. I got the feeling, never confirmed, that he suffered from depression.

He was a damn fine wingshot, especially in the pigeon ring, and an even better writer.

DB Bill,

What you just described is pretty much the mark of many of the greatest of authors of our time. There's Something about the talent to reflect that much feeling onto the written page that translates to melancholy, depression or chemical dependency when dealing with reality. Just look at Hemingway, Faulkner, Ruark, and Lewis Grizzard (southerners know who he was).

For those who want to read more, Gene Hill's books are available on Amazon for a very reasonable price. I recommend "A Hunters Fireside Book," "A Listening Walk," and "Mostly Tail Feathers." All three are compilations of Gene Hill articles published in various magazines over the years. If you buy any of them, I recommend you keep the tissues handy. You're gonna need them -- I don't care who ya are!

Oh, and for the record, I am totally obsessed with Gene Hill's literary works!

There's a new book out of Gene Hill's writings. Safari Press has it and it's called Sunlight and Shadows. By the way, thanks for sharing the link to some of Gene's masterpieces. I remember looking forward every month to his articles on gundogs, in I believe, Field and Stream, and remember, with sadness, the day that I found out that he had passed on.

thank you so much for the link, i have never read anything by him before, and he is a wonderful writer.

best regards

peter

Thanks for the link. it reminded my of Rege Podraza's poem - Africa Calls.

quote:

Originally posted by JohnHunt:
Wow, they don't make it easy to print that short story.

But success is MINE!

How did you print it? I could not.

This made me think of a book of Gene Hill's I have in my library. I got it out and sure enough, the dust cover was marking page 117, "THE ELEPHANT HUNT" I tried to look it up using the same book preview but it said Pages 117 and 118 are not part of this book preview.
Not politically correct I guess?

Rich Elliott