The Affair

Abstract

If “brute” became Hattie’s favorite pejorative to describe her husband, Fields had his own verbal weapons. “You have been a lazy, ignorant, bad-tempered, arguing, trouble-making female all your life… I havent one good thought or memory of you, and the very thought of an interview with you fills me with rage.” Taking a pencil, Hattie wrote on the back of the letter: “What I wanted to ask this brute was—if he would not advance us our first month’s rent to start us in our home again when I could secure an apartment.”¹