To Have and Have Not

To Have and Have Not is a 1937 novel by Ernest Hemingway about Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain who runs contraband between Cuba and Florida. The novel depicts Harry as an essentially good man who is forced into blackmarket activity by economic forces beyond his control. Initially, his fishing charter Johnson tricks Harry by not paying back the money he owes him, and then escapes the country by airplane before Harry can realize what is going on. Harry then takes a critical decision to attempt smuggling Chinese immigrants into Florida in order to feed his family. (He then finds himself forced to kill the person in charge of getting the immigrants to Florida, because the man "Obviously was far too easily persuaded to pay him more for the transport") The Great Depression features prominently in the novel, forcing depravity and starvation on the residents of Key West, referred to as "Conchs."

Harry Morgan is a typical Hemingway hero: first it seems as if he is a cold blooded murderer - but yet he is the mystical role model of the morally kind American father.

Harry Morgan only has one arm intact, and how he lost his other arm is revealed in the later parts of the book. The book also describes how he manages to fight off three armed Cuban bandits holding him hostage on his own boat while only being able to fight back with one arm.

Legend has it that Hemingway wrote the book as part of a contractual obligation and hated it. Howard Hawks, who adapted the novel for film claimed that Hemingway had told him it was his worst book, and a "bunch of junk". It is also claimed that he wrote the book at the Compleat Angler Hotel on Bimini, in the Bahamas.