Hemingway's Brain by Andrew Farah

Author:Andrew Farah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 2017-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Mayo

Hemingway’s physician in Idaho was fifteen years his junior and humbly described himself as “just a country doctor.” Though it was obvious to everyone that his patient needed immediate help, Dr. Saviers felt the condition was “so far out of my field that I cannot even diagnosis it.”1 Saviers was underestimating himself. Though he had no local behavioral health facility or even a psychiatrist to consult, like many country doctors he displayed wisdom and compassion in dealing with his patient, and even if he did not have the psychiatric vocabulary necessary for a diagnosis, he could still describe Hemingway’s symptoms: Ernest was anxious, depressed, obsessed with delusional fears; his moods were erratic, and his personality had changed. Routine conversations revealed a decline in his cognitive skills, and Saviers also came to believe that his writing had deteriorated to standards well below his abilities and stature. Surely the doctor had seen other patients who suffered dementias and displayed many of the same symptoms. But it is also true that he and Ernest were close, and it must have been distracting and painful to watch his friend decline.

Alfred Hotchner was another close friend, as well as business partner, sometime editor, frequent travel partner, and sometime errand boy. He had met Hemingway in the spring of 1948, over Papa Dobles at the Floridita, and was instantly trusted; in fact, he was always a confidant, even during Hemingway’s most extreme periods of paranoia. Hotchner described Hemingway’s clinical picture to a respected New York psychiatrist, who recommended the Menninger Clinic in Kansas, but he and Mary understood that an admission to a facility known solely for psychiatric care had to be rejected—there was the issue of publicity, but, besides that, Hemingway would never agree to it.2 When he did agree to enter Rochester’s Mayo Clinic in November 1960, he was told and believed that it was to address only his elevated blood pressure (which had risen to 220/125). It is hard to be critical of this action; like many patients with psychosis, Hemingway needed treatment but refused it. He also needed privacy to recover, but his celebrity status would make this a challenge anywhere. At every turn, it seems that Mary was doing the best that she could.

Fifty years before Ernest’s admission, his father had walked into that same clinic for a refresher course and sent a postcard to his then eleven-year-old son: “It will be only a few years before you and Papa will be visiting clinics together.”3 Standing in the same wards five decades earlier, Dr. Ed Hemingway was dreaming of his handsome little boy’s future medical career.

It is widely thought that Hemingway’s alias while hospitalized, “George Saviers,” was assigned to protect his identity, and even his psychiatrist at Mayo believed the alias was given at the clinic’s directive. However, the admissions process was so tedious that it agitated Hemingway. Dr. Saviers, who had accompanied him en route on Larry Johnson’s single-engine Piper to Rochester, noted how restless Hemingway was becoming. They

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