The Paris Wife, by Paula McClain

Ernest Hemingway has become a man of lore. His work gives us a glimpse into the lives of very normal people and the intricacies that make them infinitely interesting. McClain has mixed the myth of his Hemingway's own stories that mirrored his own life to an extent along with personal correspondance and his own memoir to paint a picture of this man, but more importantly of his first wife, Hadley.

Though, the end (divorce) is know from the beginning, with each sentence the reader feels the love between the two grow thick as molasses and hope that the end could be changed, even though the story wouldn't ring as true to what life is. Hadley is a simple woman who finds a new start in Hemingway as she nears thirty and he is just getting started on his career. The two make it through thin years in Paris, as Hemingway works to making it the writing world with helpful eye and friendship of people like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Scott Fitzgerald. Through trips to Spain, the loss of years of Hemingway's work and the birth of their son, Bumby, Hadley is always supportive.

However, as the two close in on five years of marriage, and over a year of trying to overcome an affair between a wealthy woman that writes for Vogue, Pauline, and Hemingway, the two are merely a shadow of the people they once were. Hadley finally concedes to a divorce.


While the five years make up a small portion of the two's lives, there is no denying the lasting influence that one had on the other. Hemingway says repeatedly that Hadley is the best of people, much better than himself, possibly too good. Though, he remarried several more times, Hadley was by his side during the most formative years of his writing developing view of the world and McClain displays their relationship beautifully in all of it's grittiness, leaving the reader with as much admiration for the woman behind the Hemingway as the man himself.