Paris Wife

Chicago 1920: Hadley Richardson is a shy twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness when she meets Ernest Hemingway and is captivated by his energy intensity and burning ambition to write. After a whirlwind courtship and wedding the pair set sail for France. But glamorous Jazz Age Paris full of artists and writers fuelled by alcohol and gossip is no place for family life and fidelity. Ernest and Hadleys marriage begins to founder and the birth of a beloved son serves only to drive them further apart. Then at last Ernests ferocious literary endeavours begin to bring him recognition - not least from a woman intent on making him her own.. . See Judys Review See Richards Review Download A Sample Chapter Of The Paris Wife See Paula McLain talk about her book Reading
Group Questions Read an exclusive Q&A with Paula McLain Write a Review for The Paris Wife Judys Review For me The Paris Wife is all the more poignant for the fact that from the outset we know this happiest of young marriages is doomed. Hadley herself is our narrator and issues a clear warning in the opening chapter. I dont want to say Keep watch for the girl who will come along and ruin everything but shes coming anyway set on her course in a gorgeous chipmunk coat and fine shoes. Oh dear. But the strength and tenderness of the relationship so beautifully described by McLain conspires to almost make us forget that it is headed for disaster. And the descriptions of Paris in the early 1920s are marvellous. This was the sparkling dawn of the impossibly glamorous Jazz Age. The Hemingways
are surrounded by legendary figures - F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda; Gertrude Stein; Ezra Pound. Life is fuelled by gossip and alcohol and sex. All are in full flight from the terrible war and the atmosphere is volatile. Hadley has a son and begins to realise that a bohemian lifestyle with exotic febrile friends is no basis for family life. She begins to lose her confidence and is plagued by jealousy. Meanwhile Hemingways writing is reaching its fullest power and a terrible deception is imminent. This is a wonderful book and a fascinating insight into the early life of a literary giant. It also moved me to tears. Richards Review