The Paris Wife

This book is so wonderful, it's only fair to warn you before you read any further - there will be gushing in the review. Unabashed, shameless, gushing. I'm a fairly picky reader, and have read a lot of good stuff over the years, so I consider myself fairly discerning. This book was better than I expected, every bit as good as some of the so-called classics that are out there, a page-turning story with plenty of "drama" going on and still, at the same time, a quiet look at the interior life of one woman.

Okay, let me catch my breath and explain.

The Paris Wife, by Paula McClain, is the fictionalized tale of Hadley Richardson, first wife of Ernest Hemingway. Before Hemingway was Hemingway, she married the unknown witer based on not too much more than dizzying adoration and sex appeal (on both sides). She traveled with him to live as starving artist ex-pats in Paris, she bore his son, she read his stuff and modestly entertained his freinds (folks like Gertrude Stein, so picture that after dinner talk). This is a quiet book about a quiet woman. She was not subserveint per se, just very traditional and supportive of her husband, because he was a genuis and she believed that. The love shared by Hadley and Ersnest is so real, so intimately portrayed, one fairly blushes at being allowed a look into their little story. For Hadley, the small and special life they share seems to be enough. She comes from a somewhat sad and dysfunctional family, and Ernest becomes her best freind, her family. Their life is Paris satisfies her, especially when she begins to seriously study the piano. But Hemingway being the man who we all know would eventually stalk big game in Africa and go fishing off Catalina and be a bullfighting enthusiast and all that - he has less success contending himself with a small life.

What happnes in this book, as even McClain says at the start, is no surprise. We all know the saga of Hemingway and his many wives and sad life. But when coupled with what he says in his own words in A Moveable Feast, this story is as tragic and beautiful and sad and moving as any I have ever read. Becaue he loved her and he never stopped loving her, it makes one take a moment to look at someone who, on the surface, is a simple housewife (ugh, hate that term) and say, "I want to know a little something about her." That is the strength of this story, too; the fact that, had she never married Hemingway, Hadley Richardson would likely be unknown to us today. But she was someone, someone with value, not just the Paris wife, or starter wife, who Ernest traded in when success and fame and money came. She was intelliegent and well read. She loved music and had a sophisticated ear. She was thoughtful and loyal. She never was judgemental, always understanding that men and women have a host of imperfections, and recognizing which of those she could endure, and which she ultimately could not. I identified with her strongly. Her story was a great one, respectfully told by a skilled writer.