A non-fiction mystery: The death of Ernest Hemingway

Some true stories are as engrossing as fiction. Ernest Hemingway died more than 50 years ago, but mystery hounds his death to this day.

What we came to know is this: One July morning in 1961, Hemingway woke up, went straight ahead to a roomful of guns, took a double-barreled shotgun and pulled its trigger. But instead of pointing it to pigeons as he usually did, he put it against his head. He died in that single blow.

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The question at that time was how could someone of that stature--a journalist and a literary giant, a brawny man who loved adventuring in the great outdoors--take his own life?

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Different speculations arose. His wife Mary claimed Hemingway accidentally killed himself while cleaning the shotgun--a claim she withdrew a few months after. Others say he had just gone mad out of his uncontrollable dependence to alcohol.

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Or is alcoholism to blame? I came across a research of around 15 of Hemingway’s biographies that revealed the great writer was a victim of a sad childhood under his parents who displayed difficult behavior. He was heir to a tendency for moody, erratic behavior, and an addiction to alcohol. Such would probably explain the unpredictable temper, countless dalliances, a tendency for flight, the love for gore, the injured spirit, and that eventual move to end his life.

What exactly made him pull the trigger, then? One of his friends, playwright Aaron Edward Hotchner, floated an idea on the possible reason behind the mental anguish of his final days. Hemingway was afraid the FBI, suspicious of his ties with Cuba after retreating there for decades, was following him.

But how that plot had set would be both interesting and perplexing to know.  

I am Zachary Wood, a business manager living in Orlando, Florida. I am a water sports enthusiast and a fan of Ernest Hemingway's mystery works. Visit this blog where I blog about celebrity arrests taking place in my hometown. That’s how I keep up with mystery in real life.