Books & Java

The Paris Wife

by Paula McLain

Synopsis:  

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 and her life changes forever. 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 and Zelda Fitzgerald. 

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill-prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually 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.

My Review:

In one word AMAZING. This book is why I love to read. McClain is such an eloquent writer. I felt the whole time as though I was a "fly on the wall" in the Hemingway's Paris apartment and in Chicago, and Pamplona and Schrun and the Riviera... I will be in Paris in November, and I have a list of places that I will visit, Hemingway's frequented landmarks in Montparnasse and 74 Cardinal Lemoine. I can't rave more about this book other than to say I LOVED IT. Just on a side note, Woody Allen has a wonderful movie called Midnight in Paris which I pictured in my head the whole time I read this book.