The Saul Bellow He Didn’t Want the World to See

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 tabl