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Arkansas TV will air “Hemingway,” the three-part documentary from Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, starting Monday, Aug. 31, at 8 p.m.
The remaining two parts air Monday, Sept. 7, and Monday, Sept. 14, also at 8 p.m. The full series runs six hours. It can also be streamed at arkansastv.gov/live.
Arkansas has a real claim on the subject. Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, came from a Piggott family, and the couple spent much of their 13-year marriage tied to northeast Arkansas.
Hemingway wrote part of “A Farewell to Arms” while staying at the Pfeiffer home. The first episode touches on his time in the state, framed around the couple’s move to Piggott shortly before their son Patrick was born.
Arkansas State University now runs the restored Pfeiffer house and the Hemingway Barn-Studio as one of its four heritage sites. The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center at 1021 W. Cherry St. in Piggott is open weekdays, with tours on the hour from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Arkansas TV has also produced a digital series on those Arkansas ties, with visits to the museum and interviews with historians and museum staff.
The documentary looks at Hemingway’s work and his influence while pushing past the public image he built, taking up his private struggles and the prejudices that show up in his writing.
Peter Coyote narrates. Jeff Daniels voices Hemingway, and Meryl Streep, Keri Russell, Mary-Louise Parker and Patricia Clarkson voice his four wives.
Arkansas TV is the state’s only statewide public television network. Viewers in the Twin Lakes area receive it over the air through KEMV in Mountain View.
