The Doom of the Hemingways – A Family Memoir

There are many writers who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and many of them are rarely mentioned after a few years of winning the prize, like Ernest. Writers like Hemingway, whose fame has remained undiminished for decades and whose works have sold well around the world, are rare. This is not only because some of his works are indeed shocking, but also has a lot to do with his legendary life experience, extremely rich love life, unusual death, and rumors of family doom. Today, let's gossip about the family's doom, and there are rumors that Hemingway's father's generation has been cursed.

Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, when he was 29 years old, his 57-year-old father Clarence committed suicide. As the eldest son, Hemingway had to clean up the mess and pay off his father's accumulated debts during his lifetime. He thought his father was a coward, and only a coward would commit suicide.

On July 2, 1961, 33 years later, Hemingway committed suicide at the age of 62 when he swallowed a gun at his home in the United States. Before his death, the great writer had suffered from depression for several years, his eyesight had declined, his health had declined, his sons had not bothered him, and his financial situation had always worried him, and all kinds of anxieties had made it almost impossible for him to write literature. A friend who knew Hemingway well said that he was a "man who was born to write" and that if he could no longer create good works, he would feel that life was meaningless. Perhaps it was for this reason that Hemingway finally chose to say goodbye to the world like his father.

Hemingway loved many women in his life, but the woman he loved all his life was his first wife, Hadley, who had been very close to him since childhood, his sister Ursula. Ursula also committed suicide at the age of 64.

Leicester was the youngest of Hemingway's six siblings and his only brother. Leicester, 16 years younger than Hemingway, has admired his big brother since he was a child and wants to follow his big brother's footprints everywhere. After Hemingway's death, Leicester published his memoir, My Brother: Hemingway, which brought him a lot of financial benefits. According to Hemingway's last private secretary, Valerie, hemingway received a manuscript of this memoir from his brother when he was in Cuba in 1960, and wanted to ask his brother for guidance. But Hemingway was furious when he saw it, and directly poured gasoline on the manuscript and burned it, and said that if Leicester was short of money, why didn't he go directly to him. In 1961, at Hemingway's funeral, Leicester also privately asked Valerie about the whereabouts of the manuscript, and Valerie naturally could not tell the truth in order not to hurt his feelings. In 1982, at the age of 67, Leicester also committed suicide by swallowing a gun just like his brother had done.

When it was thought that the hemingway family's suicidal doom would only befall members in their fifties and sixties, in 1996, Margot, the second daughter of Hemingway's eldest son, also died of a drug overdose at the age of 42.

Of particular note is the experience of Hemingway's third son, the younger son Gregory. He developed transvestites from an early age, suffered from depressive symptoms in adulthood, and received electric shock therapy for many years. After ending three marriages, Gregory finally underwent sex reassignment surgery, but that still didn't resolve his mess. As a result, Gregory, who became a woman, married another wife, Ida, and everyone in the family said that this Ida married Gregory only to control his money. Two years later, Gregory tried to leave Ida and divorced her, but before long, Gregory, who was in constant depression and trouble, was inseparable from people, and he returned to Ida and remarried with Ida, and the property power was firmly held by Ida. One day at the age of 70, Gregory walked naked on the streets of the early morning after an all-night drinking party, carrying a skirt and high heels in his hand, and was taken away by the police and thrown into a women's prison. Although the bail was only $100 and the procedure was extremely simple, it appeared that Ida did not attempt to go to prison to bail him, and five days later Gregory was found dead in his cell from a heart attack.

Gregory's eldest son, John, wrote a book, The Doom of the Hemingways, detailing the chaotic life of his father, who, though once an unqualified son, husband, and father, was a loving, generous, intelligent and humorous father whose son was remembered when he was awake uncontrolled by alcohol or depression. Moreover, even if life had caused Gregory so much pain, he never committed suicide and did not succumb to the fate of his family.

Gregory himself wrote a book, Father: A Memoir, about his relationship with his father, Hemingway. As soon as the book was published in 1976, it was widely received by critics and became a bestseller at the time. Gregory quotes a passage from his father's book as the first sentence of his biography.

In his book Islands in the Current, Hemingway tells the story of a father, Thomas Hemingway. The story of Hudson living on the island with his three sons is seen as an autobiography by Hemingway. In the book, the father writes of his favorite youngest son: "The youngest boy is handsome, and he is as strong as a pocket battleship." In appearance, he is simply Thomas. Hudson's scaled-down version, just shorter and fatter. His skin will be freckled as soon as he is sunburned, and he has a funny face, which is born to look very old. He was also a devil, often doing evil to his brother, and he was born with a dark side, except for Thomas. No one other than Hudson could perceive this. ...... Although he performs well, he is actually very bad in his bones, and often takes pleasure in teasing others. He's a bad boy, and everyone else knows it, and he knows it himself. He performs well, and at the same time the evil in his heart grows. ”

Unfortunately, the book was compiled and published after Hemingway's death. When the father was alive, the father ridiculed and despised the son, and the son spoke harshly to the father, and the two were equally charming and charming, and they were equally tormented by bipolar disorder, but they were so unable to communicate and open their hearts to the beloved. Gregory liked this passage from his father's book very much, and often read it over and over again, realizing that his father really knew and loved him. However, everything is late, and the emptiness is sad.

In his book Doom at Hemingway's House, John recalls going to the movies with his father Gregory as a child. That movie is about two patrol cops, a novice and a veteran who is about to retire. The two depend on each other in difficult times, like father and son. This prompted the retired veteran to decide to do something he should have done long ago: because he was always busy when he was a policeman and did not have time to take care of his son, now he wanted to try to contact his son and bridge the gap between father and son. But he realized that it was too late, that his son was reluctant to talk to him, and that no one else was willing to associate with him. The old hand was very lonely and lost, and finally one day, he opened the drawer and took out a pistol——

"I (John) heard my father sitting next to me muttering, 'Oh God, don't!' - And then the picture: there is a bullet hole in the window, the sunset shines through the bullet hole, and the pistol falls to the ground. I saw Dad holding his head in both hands, still muttering to himself, 'No, no!' ’

So, I knew he never came out of the shadows. ”