The Paris Wife: A Novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A deeply evocative novel of ambition and betrayal that captures the love affair between two unforgettable people, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley--from the author of Love and Ruin and When the Stars Go Dark
"A beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s--as a wife and as one's own woman."--Entertainment Weekly
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People - Chicago Tribune - NPR - The Philadelphia Inquirer - Kirkus Reviews - The Toronto Sun - BookPage Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness--until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group--the fabled "Lost Generation"--that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris. As Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history and pours himself into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises, Hadley strives to hold on to her sense of self as her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Eventually they find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage--a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they've fought so hard for. A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.
"A beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s--as a wife and as one's own woman."--Entertainment Weekly
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People - Chicago Tribune - NPR - The Philadelphia Inquirer - Kirkus Reviews - The Toronto Sun - BookPage Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness--until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group--the fabled "Lost Generation"--that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris. As Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history and pours himself into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises, Hadley strives to hold on to her sense of self as her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Eventually they find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage--a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they've fought so hard for. A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
This book had a lot of potential in its concept, but ultimately failed in my estimate for a few reasons.
The first is that this is meant to be historical speculative novel centered around Hemingway’s first wife, often lost to history, and telling her story. However, even though it is ostensibly about - and from the POV of - Hadley, it’s mostly just her observing Hemingway’s career. She has no agency or feelings in the story, it feels more like she’s just commenting on events. Whatever the author’s intentions were, it felt like she secretly wanted to write a biography of Hemingway but there’s probably a lot of those, and this felt like a gimmick at getting a biography of hemingway’s Paris years published. It didn’t have enough narrative strength or feeing to be fiction instead of a biography, and writing about Hadley only works if the author cares enough to write beyond the simple statement of events.
The first is that this is meant to be historical speculative novel centered around Hemingway’s first wife, often lost to history, and telling her story. However, even though it is ostensibly about - and from the POV of - Hadley, it’s mostly just her observing Hemingway’s career. She has no agency or feelings in the story, it feels more like she’s just commenting on events. Whatever the author’s intentions were, it felt like she secretly wanted to write a biography of Hemingway but there’s probably a lot of those, and this felt like a gimmick at getting a biography of hemingway’s Paris years published. It didn’t have enough narrative strength or feeing to be fiction instead of a biography, and writing about Hadley only works if the author cares enough to write beyond the simple statement of events.
This was a lovely and frequently sad book. Made me so interested in reading a holistic biography of Hemingway.
Hadley took the back burner to Ernest, but was perhaps the more interesting of the two. She threw herself into her marriage in spite of the odds being against her. When it inevitably ended poorly, she didn't allow herself a great deal of self-pity. I liked her. Darling -- those were some crazy times!
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.