I think the image of Hemingway mustering up all this machismo to pound out another angst-riddled modern American classic shows just how easy the white, heterosexual male had it in his day. Papa didn’t have to live with the knowledge that, if not for white privilege, he never would have gotten his first job working for a newspaper at age 17, nor would he have stuck his nose in the middle of the Spanish Civil War nor run with the bulls in Spain nor written such hyper-masculine books to cover over his homosexual urges. He was not expected to know, much less acknowledge, that the world had been served up for him on a silver platter. He thought he had clawed his way to the top using nothing more than his own two hands, his typewriter, and his wits. And paper and pencils. And booze. Quite a lot of it, actually. And his 52 cats. And the other animals he was so fond of in Cuba. And of course his dear wife. Maybe his favorite reading lamp and chair, too. Plus his books and periodicals. But otherwise, just those two hands. Nothing else.