Exactly 50 years ago last Friday night going into Saturday morning — 1 July into the 2nd — in Ketchum, Idaho, Ernest Hemingway asked his wife Mary to sing an Italian song, ‘Tutti mi chiamano bionda’, everyone calls me blondie. After they had both gone up to bed he silently padded down the stairs, stepping softly so as to make no sound, went to the basement storage room, took out a double-barrelled shotgun, inserted two shells, went back up to the hall, leaned against the hard steel with his forehead and pulled the trigger.
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