Left to my own devices it’s highly likely I wouldn’t have read Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife. The title has too much of a suggestion of a romance, a genre that holds little appeal for me. But the book went onto my “to read” list once another book blogger (sorry I forget whom) tipped me off that the wife in question was Hadley Richardson, aka the first Mrs Ernest Hemingway,
I’d already read and enjoyed Naomi Wood’s Mrs Hemingway about all four of Hemingway’s wives though it left me wanting more detail about these women. Paula McLain satisfied that need with a novel that reveals the joys and challenges of life with a man of seemingly limitless charisma yet easily able to alienate friends and acquaintances with his arrogant, boorish behaviour.
McLain’s story opens in Paris before a flashback to Hadley’s first meeting with Hemingway at a party in Chicago in 1920. They were an unlikely pairing.
She was 28 years old, a quiet woman who had never strayed far from her home in St Louis and whose hopes of becoming a concert pianist had come to nothing. He was eight years her junior, a party animal who had seen the world as an ambulance driver during World War 1. But there was an undeniable spark between them.
They married after a brief courtship (conducted largely through letters), moving within months to Paris. Ernest had been persuaded this was “the” place to be for an aspiring writer. It was also a cheap place to live; a major concern for the impoverished newlyweds.
Ernest threw himself into the cultural life of the city in pursuit of his literary ambitions. He was soon part of an influential cultural circle that included Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Dorothy Shakespear and — later — Scott Fitzgerald. Parties were frequent and the Hemingways became well acquainted with the city’s cafes and bars. But in the day, Hadley however was often lonely.
While Ernest could head for his studio to spend the whole day writing. she had little to occupy her beyond grocery shopping and cleaning their apartment.
She often felt she didn’t belong in Paris among the chic women in Chanel; their manicured nails and neat bobs contrasting with her own long wool skirts and shapeless sweaters. They were “lean and hungry-looking” while she had never lost her “round face and plump arms.”
The Paris Wife divulges Hadley’s innermost thoughts about her life in Paris and the highs and lows of her marriage. There are outings to the Paris races, holidays in Austria where they learn to ski and exhilarating days watching bullfighting in Pamplona. But as Ernest’s career flourished, there were increasing arguments and moody silences,
The novel traces the decline of this marriage from the devastating loss of Ernest’s draft manuscripts — three year’s worth of work left accidentally by Hadley on a train. And then to the final breakdown and divorce triggered by Ernest’s affair with the wealthy socialite Pauline Pfeiffer.
Although the book is titled The Paris Wife and we do learn much about Hadley’s life and personality, the narrative is also revealing in its depiction of Ernest Hemingway.
McLain shows us a man frustrated that his value as a writer is unrecognised by publishers. Instead of lucrative contracts he has to rely for income on magazine editing jobs and journalistic commissions. He keeps going however, so desperate to capture truth on the page that he struggles with every sentence.
“I’m trying to keep it alive, he said. To stay with the action and not try to put in what I’m feeling about it. Not think about myself at all, but what really happened. That’s where the real emotion is.”
Through Hadley’s eyes we see a man of intense feelings (passionate about writing, fishing and bullfighting) and many contradictions. Underneath his frequent posturing and bravado lay deep insecurities. He seemed to need constant validation from Hadley about his abilities and was highly jealous of other writers’ success.
He was a great charmer who could also be cruel; the man who made friends easily only to use them and discard them when they no longer served their needs. By the end Hadley recognises that she is like many of his friends; useful once for her emotional and financial support but no longer essential to his life and career. Her time has come and gone, and though she knows he still loves her, it’s Pauline that is more suited to the next stage of his career.
Whether this is a faithful portrayal of his character I can’t judge, but he certainly didn’t emerge from this depiction as anything other than a selfish man, ready to sacrifice everything in pursuit of his ambitions.
The Paris Wife is vividly told — the scenes at the bullfights were rather too vivid for my taste however. I much preferred the descriptions of 1920s Parisian cafe life and the quiet domesticity of the Hemingway’s home life. There’s one particularly touching moment where the heavily pregnant Hadley sews baby blankets in the intervals between the bullfights.
McLain’s novel got my 10booksofsummer reading off to a cracking start. It could so easily have been just a simple biographical retelling of a literary marriage; I wasn’t expecting it to be such a nuanced exploration of love, sacrifice, and the cost of artistic genius.
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