He Was the Most Acclaimed Novelist of His Generation. He Won the Nobel. He Was Worse Than Anyone Knows.

"In the summer of 1958, the novelist Saul Bellow and his second wife, Sondra, were living in a crumbling mansion in Tivoli, New York. They had purchased the house because it was conveniently close to Bard College, where Bellow taught a literature class, but it had turned out to be badly in need of repair. It came with 14 large rooms on three floors, including a space in the basement for a dining area, which they furnished with a heavy mahogany table."

"One evening in June, Bellow and his wife, whom he called Sasha, sat down together for dinner. Adam, their 16-month-old son, was asleep upstairs. The table was set with a vase of peonies from the garden, along with a tureen of stew and a whole watermelon. Before the meal was over, the table would be overturned, the dishes and a glass percolator shattered on the stone floor, the melon bursting open into a flood of black seeds. Rushing to get Adam, Sasha would escape in her car to the house of their neighbor, Bellow's friend Jack Ludwig, with whom she was having an affair."

"It was the turning point in the disintegration of their marriage, which ended in divorce two years later. Notably, however, the incident was omitted entirely from the most visible product of their married life, Bellow's famed novel Herzog. After its publication in 1964, the book became a runaway success, dominating the bestseller lists for six months, receiving the National Book Award, and making its author wealthy and famous at last at 49."

Saul Bellow and his second wife Sondra lived in a dilapidated Tivoli mansion near Bard College with a 14-room layout and a basement dining space. In June 1958 a domestic scene escalated: a table set with peonies, stew and a watermelon was overturned, dishes shattered, and the melon burst into black seeds as Sondra fled to a neighbor with their sleeping 16-month-old son. The episode marked a turning point leading to divorce two years later and was omitted from Bellow's novel Herzog, which later achieved bestseller status and major literary awards, establishing Bellow's eminent reputation.

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