The Paris Wife
A New York Times Best Seller! A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures the love affair between Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Europe, where they become swept up in the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris—hanging out with a volatile group that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. As Ernest struggles to find his literary voice and Hadley strives to hold on to her sense of self, 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.
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Community Reviews
I found the first half of the book fairly boring and forced myself through it. I realize it's impossible to write about Hemingway and his friends Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and that club without also writing about people getting drunk nearly every night, and while that was part of their story I have little patience let alone sympathy for people whose lives go off the rails because they can't cope with life without excess alcohol.
However, the book began to grip me when the main character, Hadley Hemingway, begins to sense a threat to her marriage in the form of a "friend" named Pauline, whom Ernest at first said he detested for her attention to fashion and other things Hemingway had earlier on found shallow. But as he makes a name for himself, he cannot escape the lure of the shallow class of people -- the people with money, the people who assure him of his greatness -- he once despised.
Hadley Hemingway, from modest Midwest roots, finds herself increasingly isolated from both her husband and their friends. Trying to raise their little boy, she is turned off by the casualness of sexual relationships that were becoming in vogue among "their crowd," and with dismay she realizes that her husband is becoming self-abosrobed, selfish, and willing to turn on his friends in order to get a "good" story. Case in point: the vicious satire he wrote based openly on the writer Sherwood Anderson, without whose help Hemingway's first book might not have been published.
The book is most absorbing as we watch Hadley finally stand up for herself and work to build a new life. No surprise that Ernest Hemingway ended up married four times, never finding peace, and committing suicide despite all his literary acclaim.
However, the book began to grip me when the main character, Hadley Hemingway, begins to sense a threat to her marriage in the form of a "friend" named Pauline, whom Ernest at first said he detested for her attention to fashion and other things Hemingway had earlier on found shallow. But as he makes a name for himself, he cannot escape the lure of the shallow class of people -- the people with money, the people who assure him of his greatness -- he once despised.
Hadley Hemingway, from modest Midwest roots, finds herself increasingly isolated from both her husband and their friends. Trying to raise their little boy, she is turned off by the casualness of sexual relationships that were becoming in vogue among "their crowd," and with dismay she realizes that her husband is becoming self-abosrobed, selfish, and willing to turn on his friends in order to get a "good" story. Case in point: the vicious satire he wrote based openly on the writer Sherwood Anderson, without whose help Hemingway's first book might not have been published.
The book is most absorbing as we watch Hadley finally stand up for herself and work to build a new life. No surprise that Ernest Hemingway ended up married four times, never finding peace, and committing suicide despite all his literary acclaim.
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