Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, General, United States, France, Paris (France), Hemingway; Ernest - Marriage, Expatriate authors, Biographical, Biographical fiction, Authors; American, Authors' spouses, Expatriate authors - France, Authors' spouses - United States, Authors; American - France, Mowrer; Hadley Hemingway, Lang:en
Summary
Author Paula McLain on
The Paris Wife
Most of us know or think we know who Ernest Hemingway was --
a brilliant writer full of macho swagger, driven to take on
huge feats of bravery and a pitcher or two of martinis --
before lunch. But beneath this man or myth, or some combination
of the two, is another Hemingway, one we’ve never seen
before. Hadley Richardson, Hemingway’s first wife, is the
perfect person to reveal him to us -- and also to immerse us in
the incredibly exciting and volatile world of Jazz-age
Paris. The idea to write in Hadley’s voice came to me as I
was reading Hemingway’s memoir,
A Moveable Feast, about his early years in Paris. In
the final pages, he writes of Hadley, “I wished I had
died before I ever loved anyone but her.” That line, and
his portrayal of their marriage -- so tender and poignant and
steeped in regret -- inspired me to search out biographies of
Hadley, and then to research their brief and intense courtship
and letters -- they wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of
delicious pages to another! I couldn’t help but fall in love with Hadley, and
through her eyes, with the young Ernest Hemingway. He was just
twenty when they met, handsome and magnetic, passionate and
sensitive and full of dreams. I was surprised at how much I
liked and admired him -- and before I knew it, I was entirely
swept away by their gripping love story. I hope you will be as captivated by this remarkable couple
as I am -- and by the fascinating world of Paris in the
20’s, the fast-living, ardent and tremendously driven
Lost Generation.
A Look Inside
The Paris Wife
Ernest and Hadley Hemingway, Chamby, Switzerland, winter
1922 Ernest and Hadley Hemingway on their wedding day, 1921 Ernest, Hadley, and Bumby, Schruns, Austria, 1925 The Hemingways and friends at a cafe in Pamplona, Spain
Guest Reviewer: Helen Simonson on
The Paris Wife
_
Helen Simonson is the
New York Times bestselling author of
_. She was born in England and spent her teenage years in a
small village in East Sussex. A graduate of the London School
of Economics and former travel advertising executive, she has
lived in America for the past two decades. After many years in
Brooklyn, she now lives with her husband and two sons in the
Washington, D.C., area.
Paula McLain has taken on the task of writing a story most
of us probably think we already know--that of a doomed starter
wife. To make life more difficult, McLain proposes to tell us
about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson,
who is a twenty-eight-year-old Midwestern spinster when she
marries the twenty-one-year-old unpublished, (but already
cocksure) writer and runs off to Paris with him. The talent and
joy of this novel is that McLain does a startling job of making
us understand this as a great love story and seducing us into
caring deeply, about both Ernest and Hadley, as their marriage
eventually comes apart. This novel moves beyond the dry bones of biography or skewed
personal vision of memoir, and takes a leap into the emotional
lives of these characters. It is a leap of faith for those
readers who think they know Hemingway, but McLain’s voice
sticks close enough to historical material, and to the words
and tone of Hemingway’s own writing, to be convincing.
She had me at the description of young Hadley’s father
committing suicide. “The carpets had been cleaned but not changed out for
new, the revolver had been emptied and polished and placed back
in his desk.” Hadley is also crippled by a childhood fall and trapped into
spinsterhood by her mother’s declining health and
eventual death. By the time she meets Hemingway, we are rooting
for her to make a break for foreign shores--even as we
understand the danger of marrying a tempestuous man. Hemingway
is all nervous purpose, ambition and charisma as he meets
Hadley and is drawn to her quiet strength and ordinary American
sweetness. In his youth and uncertainty, she is his rock and
yet we already suspect that as he grows in artistic power, she
will become an unwanted anchor. Through Hadley’s eyes and
plain-speaking voice, we see all of twenties Paris and the
larger-than-life artists who gather in the cafes. We drink tea
with Gertrude Stein and champagne with Fitzgerald and Zelda. We
run with the bulls in Pamplona and spend winters in alpine
chalets. And we see, through her love for him, the young writer
becoming the Hemingway of legend. Perhaps it is the nature of
all great artists to be completely selfish and obnoxious, but
Hadley’s voice is always one of compassion. Even as
Hemingway leaves her completely out of
The Sun also Rises, even as Hemingway publicly flirts
with other women, she continues to explain and defend him. It
is a testament to Paula McLain that the reader is slow to
dislike Hemingway, even as he slowly and inexorably betrays
Hadley’s trust. I loved this novel for its depiction of two passionate, yet
humanly-flawed people struggling against impossible
odds--poverty, artistic fervor, destructive friendships--to
cling on to each other. I raise a toast to Paula McLain’s
sure talent. History is sadly neglectful of the supporting players in the
lives of great artists. Fortunately, fiction provides ample
opportunity to bring these often fascinating personalities out
into the limelight. Gaynor Arnold successfully resurrected the
much-maligned Mrs. Charles Dickens in Girl in a Blue Dress
(2009), now Paula McLain brings Hadley Richardson Hemingway out
from the formidable shadow cast by her famous husband. Though
doomed, the Hemingway marriage had its giddy high points,
including a whirlwind courtship and a few fast and furious
years of the expatriate lifestyle in 1920s Paris. Hadley and
Ernest traveled in heady company during this gin-soaked and
jazz-infused time, and readers are treated to intimate glimpses
of many of the literary giants of the era, including Gertrude
Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. But
the real star of the story is Hadley, as this time around,
Ernest is firmly relegated to the background as he almost never
was during their years together. Though eventually a woman
scorned, Hadley is able to acknowledge without rancor or
bitterness that �Hem� had �helped me to
see what I really was and what I could do.� Much more
than a �woman-behind-the-man� homage, this
beautifully crafted tale is an unsentimental tribute to a woman
who acted with grace and strength as her marriage crumbled.
--Margaret FlanaganAmazon.com Review
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