Suicide

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the day Ernest Hemingway took his own life at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. The solemn day was marked by solemn recognitions of his achievements and contributions. “Today is a very sad day for all those who love old Hem,” one reader of this website wrote. “I just...
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Why am I in Idaho stalking the ghost of Ernest Hemingway? I’m asking myself the same question. I don’t hunt. I don’t fish. I don’t even bullfight. We’re hardly kindred souls, manly man Hemingway and scrawny man me. I’ve found myself drawn to him, though, through place.
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We walk along the outside porch. Below, the Big Wood River rollicks through tall cottonwood trees, their yellow leaves dropping off and cascading to the dense litter below. A hint of snow from the distant mountains peeks through. Monster homes are scattered along the other side of the bank. This isn’t the view Hemingway...
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Back before Hunter S. Thompson entered his Gonzo period, he wrote a thoughtful piece for the National Observer (May 25, 1964) titled “What Lured Hemingway to Ketchum?” (Find it in The Great Shark Hunt.) He writes: Anybody who considers himself a wrtier or even a serious reader cannot help but wonder just what it...
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Hemingway remembers it as the year of avalanches. Down and out Paris, with young Bumby in tow, he and Hadley fled the city for Schruns, in Austria's Vorarlberg. They lived in a $2 a day pension, playing poker by night, skiing by day. It was here where Hemingway crafted The Sun Also Rises. The suspicious...
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Before Hemingway committed suicide, skiing was on his mind.
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