The Paris Wife

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain is a fictional account of the marriage between Hadley Richardson and Ernest Hemingway as told through by Hadley.

Most accounts, A Moveable Feast, and Hemingway In Love, are told by Ernest or A.E. Hotchner. I don’t know how much of The Paris Wife is fact or fiction. I have yet to read the biography Paris Without End, The True Story of Hemingway’s First Wife by Gioia Dilberto, but it seems plausible.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain is about the marriage between Hadley and Ernest Hemingway.

McLain’s book tracks right, I mean the events within line up against those mentioned in other works about the Hemingways, so by now, I’m beginning to feel like I know them fairly well. This book is a splash of color, certainly, one that I did enjoy reading. I wish there’d been a note or two at the end that spoke about her assumptions.

The book reads matter of fact. McLain handles her assumption of the mind of Hadley Richardson with great poise and authority. One feels like he/she is in the head of Hadley the entire read and that is quite an accomplishment. When the noose of Pauline begins to tighten and Hadley is unaware it is happening, the story reads innocently. Only from having read other accounts did I know what was going on. McLain handled this perspective so well.

She also handled the revelation, the realization, when Hadley figures out that Pauline and Ernest are having the affair, well. I do not know if there are diary accounts or letters that explain this, again, I’m looking forward to Dilberto’s book—maybe I should have read that one before McLain’s—to better understand how McLain chose to write these scenes. I know how Ernest described the trip to château country in France, what I don’t know enough about is how Hadley truly reacted to Pauline, her sister and Hadley all riding off together and Hadley coming to the realization that Pauline and Ernest were having an affair while they off on the trip.

For anyone studying Hemingway, as I continue to do, this is a must read. Even though it is a fictional account of their lives, it helps to see another side of the story of their lives. I enjoyed this book and recommend it, even if you’re not studying Hemingway. It’s a good story and you’ll learn something. The accounts of F. Scott Fitzgerald and wife Zelda are funny, too.