Book Of The Month: The Paris Wife
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Paris in the 1920s was quite the time to be alive. The Roaring Twenties and the era of the flappers were in full swing. Worldwide, the Lost Generation was reeling from the trauma of World War I and the ensuing, unprecedented level of destruction and death. Paris was over-brimming with energy, Great Gatsby-style glamour, and despair, and there was no better representative of these times than the infamous expat society residing there.
The Paris Wife
Originally Published: 2011
Pages: 401
Available on: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook
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Quintessential characters, such as James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald, gathered in intimate literary circles creating the next generation of literature; Picasso regularly strolled along the Seine lost in thought; Sylvia Beach opened Shakespeare and Company on rue de l'Odéon; and poor-and-undiscovered Ernest Hemingway wrote in cafes with a drink in hand.
““If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” ”
This fascinating dynamic is creatively explored in Paula McClain’s New York Times Bestseller, The Paris Wife. A fantastic historical fiction, it sweeps you up into the bittersweet love story of Ernest Hemingway and Hadley Richardson in Paris in the ‘20s, where everyone is radiant, extravagant, artistic, and miserable.
““Sometimes I wish we could rub out all of our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning,’ I said. ‘And sometimes I think there isn’t anything to us but our mistakes.””
Beginning from Ernest and Hadley’s very first meeting in Chicago, The Paris Wife details the strong and true love between the two, and the story of their doomed marriage. When Hadley and Ernest first met, Hadley was living quietly in her sister’s house, her life sheltered by an anxious mother. She is portrayed as grounded, uncomplicated, and truthful, not having experienced much of the world yet.
Ernest had just returned from his service in Italy in the first World War and was working as a journalist. His irrepressible passion both for writing and for living opens her eyes to a whole new world of excitement.
Their opposite personalities fit like a puzzle piece. They fall in love, and impetuously, marry and move to Paris instantly. While they are very different, they support one another well and build a beautiful life together with little means. However, from the onset, Ernest struggles with fidelity and moodiness. He is a complicated and torn man who, despite his obvious love for Hadley, gets in his own way and allows things to come between them.
““Ernest once told me that the word paradise was a Persian word that meant walled garden. I knew then that he understood how necessary the promises we made to each other were to our happiness. You couldn’t have real freedom unless you knew were the walls were and tended to them. We could lean on the walls because they existed; they existed because we leaned on them.” ”
Life in Paris as a newly married couple is driven by a mutual excitement for Hemingway’s writing career, tainted by their struggles with poverty, and colored by their shared love for good company, liquor, and each other. They have close to nothing, but they find the world in each other, and that kind of love has never seemed so beautifully portrayed in a couple as in them. She and Hemingway have a son whom they affectionately call Bumby, and their home life is altogether charming and heartwarming. They make simple meals, try to pay bills on time, and travel cheaply to Spain.
But Hemingway–if Hemingway is truly the only one to blame–is not a simple man, destined to not be satisfied with what he already knows and what he already has. Insatiable and obstinate, he is a rocket constantly about to launch off the ground, and he and Hadley’s years of marriage are numbered.
““He was such an enigma, really - fierce and strong and weak and cruel. An incomparable friend and a son of a bitch. In the end, there wasn’t one thing about him that was truer than the rest. It was all true.” ”
No one is the hero or heroine in this book. Hadley is an admirable and agreeable narrator, very different from her glamorous cohorts in Paris. What she lacks in poise and style, she makes up for in honesty and steadfastness. She often feels on the outskirts of their Parisian social life, and indeed she is, as jealousy, love affairs, secrets, and tension swirl all around them.
““We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.” ”
McClain expertly walks the fine line between historical accuracy and creative liberty in The Paris Wife. She drew from many different sources, including famous ones such as A Moveable Feast, a stunning collection of sketches by Hemingway, published posthumously of his and Hadley’s happy days in Paris. The Paris Wife is stylistically similar and reminiscent of A Moveable Feast: both books bring love and life in Paris alive. There is something extraordinarily vibrant and romantic about Ernest and Hadley’s days together that will tug at every reader’s heartstrings.
It’s fascinating to have a take on the famous Hemingway from the perspective of one who knew him first and best, before the rest of the world did. What would it be like to be married to one of the most famous authors of all time? And one so dynamic as he, whose short, simple literary prose entirely contradicts the chaotic internal storm that he carries?
““Not everyone out in a storm wants to be saved.””
The Paris Wife does consist of much speculation of Hadley’s point of view, as she did not leave behind journals, but McClain had at her disposal the couple’s love letters and many other written accounts of the Hemingways and their intimate social circle in Paris.
You’ll have to read it to find out how the story unfolds, but paradise does not stay paradise long. Although Hemingway famously had a long list of wives (four total), Hadley was something extremely precious and invaluable that he chose to give up.
The Paris Wife is an extremely compelling and captivating novel, one that tells a great story and also provides some historical insight to a fascinating time period. Whether you’re a tried-and-true Hemingway fan or new to his works, The Paris Wife is for any reader who reaches for genres of nostalgia, romance, and historical fiction.