NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply evocative novel of ambition and betrayal that captures the love affair between two unforgettable people, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley—from the author of Love and Ruin and When the Stars Go Dark
“A beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s—as a wife and as one’s own woman.”—Entertainment Weekly
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People • Chicago Tribune • NPR • The Philadelphia Inquirer • Kirkus Reviews • The Toronto Sun • BookPage
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris. As Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history and pours himself into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises, Hadley strives to hold on to her sense of self as her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Eventually they find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.
A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.
I won an advanced reading copy of this book from the GoodReads First Reads programme. You could read my entire review over at my blog, eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2011/02/19/review-the-paris-wife/
The Paris Wife recounts the early years of Hemingway’s career and of his first marriage to Hadley Richardson. It’s incredibly domestic in a sense that the story really revolves around these two characters, despite it being written from Hadley’s perspective. It’s almost as if you’re really in the room observing this relationship, the good times and ultimately the bad times. It’s such an incredible journey for the two that I couldn’t believe that their relationship covered a span of five years (seemed longer; just another sign of how good this book is). Written in Hadley’s narrative, you really get a sense of what she’s feeling over the course of the relationship and how she saw everything around her, whether it be in Chicago or in Paris. While it’s a story about their relationship, you really also get a glimpse of how Hadley changed as an individual.
Overall, The Paris Wife was a wonderful book about a relatively obscure figure in Hemingway’s life.
