THE FINAL HOURS OF
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
G'day folks,
Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel Prize-winning author, adventurer, war correspondent, bullfighter, drinker and all-round macho man, blew his own brains out in 1961. His fourth wife, Mary, said that he killed himself accidentally while cleaning his double-barrelled 12-gauge shotgun.
But did he? Controversy has surrounded the death of the 61-year-old
celebrity since the fatal shooting at his home in Idaho and over the
years writers, researchers – and psychiatrists – have delved into the
mystery.
In 2006, American psychiatrist Christopher D. Martin said: “The
accumulating factors contributing to Hemingway’s burden of illness at
the end of his life are staggering.” He listed bipolar mood disorder,
depression, chronic alcoholism, repetitive traumatic brain injuries and
the onset of psychosis.
Some commentators have suggested that Hemingway’s problems – and
depression – began in 1928 when his father, Clarence, committed suicide
by shooting himself in the head. But his grandfather, brother, sister,
and granddaughter all killed themselves. And besides suicide, the
Hemingway family history is also laced with the inherited condition of
hemochromatosis, it has emerged.
Swiss scientist Sebastian Dieguez wrote in 2010 that Hemingway's
recorded behaviour and symptoms were misdiagnosed, and his death was not
an accident, but a suicide driven by the pain of this untreated
disease.
Hemochromatosis is a rare iron-overloading disorder that causes internal
damage of joints and organs, diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, heart
disease, and depression. It is also known as the Celtic Curse, and when
it goes untreated can cause severe pain, suffering, and death. It is
worse when mixed with the kind of excessive drinking in which Hemingway
frequently indulged.
In physical decline, then, Hemingway found around 1960 that he faced
another devastating and cruel blow – he could no longer write. The words
wouldn't come. Deepening depression came instead, according to English
writer and researcher John Walsh.
In the spring of 1961, Hemingway was asked to contribute a single sentence to a presentation volume marking John F. Kennedy's
inauguration. He could not oblige. He told his lifelong friend and
biographer, A.E. Hotchner: "It just won't come any more," and wept.
Walsh concludes: “Building and sustaining the image of ‘Hemingway the
Man's Man’ took courage and determination, but it was something he
needed to do – and when it dwindled, along with the all-important
capacity to write, he had no answer except to go the same way as his
father.”
