The Hemingway biography led me to the biography of Maxwell Perkins (who was Hemingway’s editor) which led me to Look Homeward, Angel (which Perkins also edited) and to “Miss Elizabeth” the autobiography of the third wife of Sherwood Anderson, Elizabeth Anderson.
Having finished that last one, I now feel my reading could go in three possible directions: I could read Faulkner’s Mosquitoes (an early one which Elizabeth Anderson says was based on a boating trip they all made); I could read a biography of silversmith Bill Sprattling (with whom Anderson had a deep friendship after her divorce from Sherwood); or I could read Gellhorn, the biography of Hemingway’s 3rd wife, a copy of which I happen sort of randomly to have. Maybe I could do a tour of third wives more generally…
I think I will go with Gellhorn because, despite not having an overwhelming interest in her as a public figure, I’ve been enjoying reading of these interweaving lives.
“Miss Elizabeth,” by the way, was good! It was she who had introduced Faulkner to Sherwood Anderson, the latter having jumpstarted the former’s career. (Miss Elizabeth ran a book store in NYC and had had Faulkner as an employee. Later on she married Sherwood and they would all hang out in New Orleans.)
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