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Love Story You’ll Love
It seems impossible that there was ever a time in which the name Ernest Hemingway wasn’t synonymous with Great American Writer, but in 1920, 21-year-old Hemingway is toiling away at unsatisfying copywriting jobs, unsure if he’ll ever be published. When he first meets Hadley Richardson, a sheltered, 28-year-old so-called spinster, he gives her one of his stories to read, then paces the room while waiting for her to tell him if she thinks it’s good.
Not long after, Ernest and Hadley are married, and it’s a fictionalized version of Hadley who narrates Paula McLain’s historical novel The Paris Wife. Hadley is instantly relatable, straightforward and honest. Right away, she lets us know that theirs isn’t a story with a happy ending: “I don’t want to say, Keep watch for the girl who will come along and ruin everything, but she’s coming anyway...” Even with this warning, I couldn’t help but be drawn into the web of their relationship. They fall in love quickly, but their marriage is haunted by Ernest’s memories of the war and a woman he loved and lost, and Hadley’s insecurities: is she sophisticated enough to fit in with Ernest’s group of glamorous friends? Will she always just be the girl reading his stories? Will she ever be a mother?
The unrelenting portrait of a crumbling marriage is rendered all the more tragic as it is set in the romantic and exciting time of Jazz-Age Paris. Ernest and Hadley’s world is populated with friends like Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda. McLain’s sparkling depiction of their friendship among the city streets and cafes made me nostalgic for a time and place I’d never known.
As I reached the end of the book, I hoped for a better outcome for Hadley and Ernest, though I knew it wasn’t to be. Still, looking back, Hadley says: “Life was painfully pure and simple and good, and I believe Ernest was his best self then. I got the very best of him. We got the best of each other.” Is there a better love story than that? — Stephanie Monahan
The Paris Wife
By Paula McLain
Ballantine Books, $25
Release Date: February 22, 2011