Violence clouded Ernest Hemingway’s life from childhood. His father, Clarence “Ed” Hemingway, was reportedly a “strict, vicious disciplinarian” who beat Ernest with a razor strop, per Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes.

In December 1928, Hemingway was finishing up the World War I novel “A Farewell to Arms” when he learned that his father had fatally shot himself in the head with the family’s Civil War revolver, per the Independent. According to Biography, Hemingway said his father’s suicide was a “cowardly” move but also resigned himself to the same fate. “I’ll probably go the same way,” he wrote to his mother-in-law shortly afterward (via PBS).

In November 1960, Hemingway sought treatment for his mental health issues at Mayo Clinic, per Mpls St Paul magazine. He was initially hospitalized for seven weeks but was readmitted the following spring. On July 2, 1961 — two days after his second release — 61-year-old Hemingway died by suicide in the foyer of his home in Ketchum, Idaho, per Biography. It was a bitter end to a narrative that some would say his father had a hand in writing and just one chapter of the so-called “Hemingway curse” that would reportedly plague the family for years to come.