 | Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow: The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Marriage Subjects: Hemingway Ernest 1899–1961 -- Marriage; Pfeiffer Pauline; Authors American -- 20th century -- Biography; Authors’ spouses -- United States -- Biography; If behind every great man there is a great woman, even the ultra-original Hemingway had several-including four wives. The one perhaps least known, wife #2, with the flapper's body and uncomfortably short hair, is Pauline Pfeiffer. This up-close-and-personal biography (with its awkward title) comes in a line of other biographies, by women, about the women who had unflagging and largely unacknowledged influence on their author-husbands. Research and writing took more than a decade, including reading through unpublished work, no easy task given document-devouring conflagrations and the general reticence of the wealthy Pfeiffer family. The central insights are two: there was the unflagging material support of Pauline's family during the lean years, especially from an uncle who, in his boundless admiration for his nephew-by-marriage, purchased the famous Key West home; and there was Pauline's selfless, largely unknown editorial guidance, particularly on The Sun Also Rises. "The other woman" in Hemingway's first marriage, Pauline suffered the identical indignity a little more than a decade later, when Hemingway had moved on, no longer in need of Pfeiffer money. Though overlong, this is a significant contribution to setting the record straight. Photos. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Ruth A. Hawkins has been an administrator at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro for more than thirty years and established its Arkansas Heritage Sites program, which includes the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum in Piggott. She has been recognized at the state, regional, and national level for her work in historic preservation and heritage tourism. |
