Why no one reads To Have and Have not today

Giving Hemingway's 1937 novel, To Have and Have Not, a go for one reason only - curiosity about how it was adapted to film in the 1950 The breaking Point, and can see right away why no one reads this novel today. H's racism is appalling right from the start - can't even begin to describe much less to justify the barbarity Andy ignorance of his language , and yes it may be so that his language is "appropriate" to the narrator, Henry, and charter-boat captain working out of Cuba and the Keys, but still H could at least write about this guy in a civilized if not enlightened manner. I will read further to see if there are any positive developments. It's a shame because this novel otherwise could be a pretty good crime adventure novel - by no means H at his peak, more likely at his nadir, but you can see that he was trying for a best seller and made some poor narrative decisions - and he did right himself obviously on later works that covered the same territory but w greater sympathy for his characters and w meaning beyond crime and thievery, notably the famous old man and the sea that resurrected his reputation and islands in the stream. Interesting in thinking about the film adaptation how director Michael Curtiz treated the black character who helps manage the charter boat w dignity and how he chose to open the film w a domestic scene rather than w a shootout. He also makes the femme fatale a major character from the outset H does not intro her till at least beyond the second chapter