The Paris Wife is a fictionalized account of some very real lives written by poet and second-time novelist Paula McLain.
It’s the story of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, and the couple’s brief but intense marriage. They spent most of their couplehood together – and apart – in Paris as Ernest struggled through insecurities and rewrites to find his way to becoming a published, and of course beloved, author. Hadley was 9 years older than her husband and nearly resigned to a life as a spinster when she became taken with the womanizing, boozing, big-talking Hemingway. Against all advice, she agreed to marry him and for a while they were very happy despite being nearly penniless.
How McLain invented the intimate patter of conversation between the two is a literary marvel. She cites a long list of books as sources for timelines and major events in the couple’s life together and creates a little world that is so believable, you can almost smell the coffee in the Parisian cafes. Their unraveling (this is no spoiler because it’s well known that Hemingway had 4 wives and countless mistresses) is as painful as a paper cut. Hem loves his family and loves Hadley but he is a deeply wounded man, both by the experiences of war and of a cold and critical Mother whom he doesn’t even dare to admit that he lives to please. It’s fascinating to “witness” how one of his most famous novels, The Sun Also Rises, comes together and how badly the construction of its characters hurt Hadley for reasons I’ll keep mum on. Mental illness is a thin thread throughout the entire book. It was hard to put it down. It’s a fly-on-the-wall view of a very famous marriage.
If I had a quibble it would be that the last tenth of the book seems rushed. It’s as if McLain allows the reader to savour the story of the marriage but rushes the story of the rest of Hadley’s life to end the book. Then again it is about Hadley’s time as Ernest’s wife. Still, the ending feels like an afterthought especially after such a wonderfully written beginning and middle
Ultimately The Paris Wife presents Hemingway as he begins to develop into the messed up, alcoholic Casanova he would harden into later in life. But for a while, in his early 20’s, he was very sweet and loving to his Hadley. Hemingway was like the scorpion that asked the frog for a ride across a river. The frog says, but you’ll sting me, you’re a scorpion! And the scorpion says, if I sting you, you’ll drown and I’ll die so why would I kill myself just to kill you? So they set off and all goes well until near the end of the journey when the scorpion stings the frog. As the frog is dying he says, you fool, now we’ll both die! And the scorpion says, I can’t help it. It’s in my nature.