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    The Paris Wife: A Novel
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    The Paris Wife: A Novel
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    The Paris Wife: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Paris Wife: A Novel

    Written by Paula McLain

    Narrated by Carrington MacDuffie

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

    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 and her life changes forever. 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 and Zelda Fitzgerald.

    Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 22, 2011
    ISBN9780307877192
    Unavailable
    The Paris Wife: A Novel
    Author

    Paula McLain

    Paula McLain received an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan, and has been a resident of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. She is the author of two collections of poetry, two novels, and a memoir, and lives in Cleveland with her family.

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    Reviews for The Paris Wife

    3.5/5

    2,007 ratings242 reviews

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    • 5/5
      For my first Jazz Age January book, I chose The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. I’m with Leah, when she mentioned that books that are ____ Wife can be annoying. But based on the popularity of The Paris Wife, I figured I would give the book a shot.I was instantly hooked. The Paris Wife is about Ernest Hemingway’s life, focusing on his young-middle aged years, when he was married to Hadley Richardson. The story is told from Hadley’s perspective, and she is just sooooo incredibly likable.I loved this novel. I rarely give a book 5 stars, but the reason why The Paris Wife deserves that 5th star is because McLain has made me want to check out more about Hemingway’s (and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s) lives! I feel like I could read a few biographies about both of these men, and F. Scott was barely even in The Paris Wife!For the full review, visit Love at First Book
    • 4/5
      Interesting look at the early adult life and career of a man who became more and more of a caricature of himself as he aged.
    • 4/5
      I have had this book on my TBR list for a couple of years now and finally got to it thanks to one of the groups I am in doing a group read. I am glad they did. Historical Fiction is one of the genres I enjoy, but have to be in the mood. This book brought the time period to life and gave me a real insight into both Ernest Hemmingway, Hadley (his first wife) and the artists bohemian lifestyle.

      I was not aware of the atmosphere of post-war Paris, but after reading this book, I have an amazing picture in my mind, the extravagance, the decadence, the debauchery, the fashions and fads of the time, the whiskey and wine, the cigarettes and smoke, the poverty and claustrophobia.

      After a whirlwind courtship and marriage, Hadley and Ernest sail off to Paris so he can write in the city where other artists and authors live. They are madly in love, but that is not enough to sustain this marriage. As they meet other's in this community they become immersed in the wild lifestly. Although Ernest does not want a child, Hadley becomes pregnant and that seems to be the catalyst to send the marriage downhill. There are happy times and tough times in their life together, but in the end, Ernest moves on. As I read this book I thought about how shallow, selfish and callous he was in his treatment of Hadley, then I thought about the idea that no one can treat you badly unless you allow it. I am glad that Hadley finds a second chance at love and lives happily for many years, while Ernest moves from wife to wife searching for that elusive love that will sustain him. Overall a good historical fiction and romance.
    • 5/5
      Hadley met an ambitious writer at a party in Chicago and was swept off her feet. That writer was a young and unknown Ernest Hemingway. They moved to Paris for his career which finally took off, but at the expense of his marriage. Written from Hadley's point of view. I could barely put this book down.
    • 2/5
      Hated this audio book. Not sure if out was the sugar-sweet voice of the reader or the Pollyanna-like personality of the subject. Not being a Hemingway fan, there wasn't much to hold my interest other than occasional cameos by other artists.
    • 4/5
      Eloquently written, this is an undoubtedly well-researched (if fictionalized) account of E.Hemingway's period of life in Paris, with his first wife Hadley Richardson, just as he was at the threshold of his career as a writer. The story is told from the first person - from Hadley's perspective - and is very captivating and moving. As I had read Hemingway's "The Moveable Feast" right before this book, it helped me a lot to understand the true mood of that period in Paris, as well as the relationship between Ernest and Hadley. Hemingway's whole life was rather tumultuous, and I was impressed to see how well (with what patience at times, which obviously came from intense love) Hadley dealt with it throughout this period in Paris - not without growing and crushing disappointment by the conclusion of this 5-year-old marriage, but with the maturity, in the end, that was quite admirable, as she was beginning to see that "...fighting for a love that was already gone felt like trying to live in the ruins of a lost city".... A praiseworthy piece of historical fiction.
    • 3/5
      I was never terribly interested in Hemingway in my undergrad years but after my husband gave me A MOVEABLE FEAST to read before our trip to Paris for our honeymoon, I've started a love affair with the man. THE PARIS WIFE piqued my interest from the date of its publication but it was one of those books that the reviews always seemed to be mixed: People either really loved it or found it to be boring and unworthy as a historical fiction portrait of Hemingway/Hadley. I hemed and hawed on purchasing the novel, but waiting list at the library (which was forever long), so I finally sucked it up and bought it on my Kindle.

      As a historical portrait of the time and period, I found much of the novel to be spot on. It was clearly very well researched in that regard. But that's where the books promise ends - the characters were all flat and Hadley was simpering and weak. The big pitch about the storyline was Hadley was a woman very much toe to toe with Hemingway in wit, intelligence, and in life and you get none of this in this book. At times I found the book a struggle to get through, but I finished it out of stubbornness.

      A ficiotnalized history of someone should be written to inspire the reader to learning more about the person(s) of the time and this is the big failure of A PARIS WIFE. If I had not already had a burgeoning interest in Hemingway and a vague obsession for Paris in the '20s, this book would not have sent me in pursuit to learn more about the man or his crowd, which is a travesty.

      There were also a few nitpicky editing decisions that were out of sync. For example, there is a scene where Hadley/Hemingway are having loads of hot sexytimes and then a few paragraphs later, they go have hot sexytimes again but Hemingway gets in a snit because they forgot to bring condoms - which totally belies the previous scene where they were having hot sexytimes all over the place. There are also issues where continuity was in question and never addresed.

      I would not recommend this title because it does a disservice to Hemingway/Hadley, the writing is often flat and a lot of the supporting characters that were larger then life (Gertrude Steine, Fitzgerald, etc) seemed like secondary puppets on a small supporting stage. I gave it a three because there are a few moments of brilliancy in the book, but often it is from direct quotes of Hemingway's work.
    • 4/5
      It took me awhile to get into this book, but I was so sad to leave it by the end. I think I liked it much more on audio than I would have in print. Now I want to read both Paula Mclain's other Hemingway novel and Hemingway's memoir A Movable Feast, and I've never read anything by or been interested in the man himself.
    • 5/5
      I rarely read bestsellers, so I resisted THE PARIS WIFE for several years, until I found it at a library sale for just a buck. Even then it sat on my table for a couple months, unread. Well now I've finally read it and found that it lives up to all the praise it's gotten. Paula McClain has gotten inside the skin of Hemingway's first wife, Hadley Richardson, stolen her voice, and brought her magically to life as she lived it in 1920s Paris. She is in fact a much more sympathetic and likeable character than her self-centered, insecure and often boorish husband. Oh, don't get me wrong - I do love some of Hemingway's work. A FAREWELL TO ARMS is one of my favorite novels. But McClain saw him plain, and nailed it, when she had Hadley notice early in the marriage, "The way he was always out for himself, whatever the cost."Or, years later, when Hadley reflects on Ernest's life - "He was such an enigma, really - fine and strong and weak and cruel. An incomparable friend and a son of a bitch. In the end, there wasn't one thing about him that was truer than the rest. It was all true."This is one damn fine book. It deserves its huge success. Bravo, Ms McLain. Very highly recommended.- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
    • 4/5
      In 1920, an introverted, sheltered beautiful woman by the name of Hadley Richardson, met Ernest Hemingway. Immediately, he wooed her and soon she counted a hundred letters sent to her obsessively. And, while they didn't really know each other well, he claimed her for marriage.Leaving Chicago, they sailed to Paris. While there, she gave up her life for him. His life had to be her life. His drinking and carousing had to be accepted. While he lived a wild, tempestuous life in Paris, she had to go along and pretend to embrace it all while she never felt she fit in with the beautiful well-dressed, shallow women. Ernest thrived in the the hard-drinking ambiance of the rich and entitled. His friends were Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and a host of other writers who were either just beginning their writing careers, or their star had already filled the literary world with marvelous words.When he developed a torrid affair with Pauline, a close friend of Hadley, she was torn apart. Living in Paris, then on to Spain where Ernest revelled in the the blood and gore of the bull fights, their excursions into the Swiss Alps, and other trips were primarily paid for by the rich because Ernest had not yet made his mark.When his writings become known, he gleefully back stabbed all who had helped him. When Hadley made the tragic mistake of becoming pregnant, his life didn't change, but her life surely did. While she still loved him, she was broken by the hurt and deceit of his utter inability to remain faithful, negating her, while embracing others with a supreme intensity.His days of Paris and Spain and his circle of friends was told in his first successful book, The Sun Also Rises. Published when it was obvious their marriage could not survive, he moved on and left her far behind. I finished the book with disdain for the man, and pity for the woman who seemed way too small for the hugeness of his ego.
    • 4/5
      This is a first person fictionalized narrative told from the perspective of Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley during the early years of his career. She was probably the ideal spouse for Hemingway. Quite a bit older than he was, she was so thick in body and mind and generally dim-witted that she posed no threat to his masculinity either physically or intellectually. We all know what happened after he hooked up with Gellhorn. The only mildly interesting thing about her was her ability to play the piano. Her family had a strain of mental illness and she liked to knock back the sauce as much as her husband. She pulled a few stunts that may have been deliberate such as loosing all his working manuscripts on a train and "accidentally" getting pregnant. How she survived as long as she did among the most brilliant creative minds the twentieth century produced is surprising, but she was accepted and liked by them. The Paris Wife is so well written and researched that as colorless as the main character is, she still has some appeal.
    • 5/5
      rabck from Miss_Sunshine; historical fiction about Hemingway's first wife. They met in the US, but lived most of their short married life in Paris or other european locales, while Hemingway got his career as a writer off the ground.
    • 4/5
      If you've heard even a hint of a whisper about this book, you probably know that Hadley (aka "The Paris Wife") was Ernest Hemingway's first wife. The phrase "first wife" immediately and obviously gives away the ending... the marriage doesn't last.

      What amazes me about this book is that even though I knew the marriage was doomed one way or the other, I was completely absorbed by their early romance, and fell in love with both of them a little bit. That may not sound like much for a book to accomplish, but it couldn't have been up against a more skeptical reader. (As a bride-to-be, I have a lot invested in my certainty that when it's really love, the marriage will last -- so I was actively looking to find fault with their relationship as a slightly silly little way of validating my own.) But it was so well written that I really believed it, believed that I would have loved her if I were him, and would have loved him if I were her. And the ending, though sad, somehow didn't belie the loveliness of the beginning.

      Totally recommended for anyone with a shred of romance in his or her heart, and if you like Hemingway's work, you'll enjoy this just that much more.
    • 4/5
      This is a very compelling fictionalized version of the relationship between Hadley Richardson and Ernest Hemingway. The story is narrated by Hadley and much research done by the author allows for some believable dialogue and descriptions of scenes in Paris, the Alps, Spain and the French Riviera.Hadley and Ernest meet in Chicago in 1920. He had returned damaged from WW1 and is struggling to write about his wartime experiences. She returns to her family in St. Louis and the two develop a very loving relationship through correspondence. They marry in 1921 and move to Paris, live in near poverty conditions, develop friendships with the local literati including Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. Although they are both from wealthy and comfortable backgrounds they adapt a bohemian lifestyle. Lounging around cafes and drinking heavily becomes a daily routine. Hadley is eight years older than her husband and becomes his best critic, strongest supporter and loving wife. As Hemingway gradually becomes more successful, their circle of friends expands to include F Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, wealthy Americans Gerald and Sara Murphy, he distances himself from his mentor Gertrude Stein.Annual visits to Pamplona provide the background story and the characters for his breakthrough novel “The sun also rises”. He skewers several friends by representing them in the book and neglects to include anyone resembling Hadley in the narrative.She is very excited about the book but is hurt that everyone in their close circle is included except her.Into this circle arrive Pauline and Jinny Pfeiffer, wealthy Americans. Pauline befriends Hadley first and then Ernest.As Hadley watches her husband fall in love with Pauline, she begins to see the dissolution of their marriage. To Ernest, everyone around them is having affairs, Hadley tries to adapt but finally asks for a divorce. They remain in love with each other their entire lives but it becomes evident that Hadley is the stronger one in the relationship.
    • 4/5
      I've never been a fan of Hemingway's writing. But, The Paris Wife made me want to read The Sun Also Rises, as well as revisit A Moveable Feast. Considering McClain hewed very close to the facts (and Hemingway's alienation of friends is well-documented) Papa comes off quite horribly here. A reprehensible genius.
    • 3/5
      3 stars only because I didn't know much about them, so I learned some things.

      To me, this book felt flat.

      Like a travel diary with lots of name dropping.
      We went _____, we met _____.

      I didn't really feel for Hadley.
      I didn't really feel for young Ernest.

      She lost him to another woman.
      She was better off anyway.

      Favorite:
      In the epilogue, Hadley, who's moved on with her life, described him as an "enigma - fine and strong and weak and cruel. An incomparable friend and a Sonofabitch".
    • 5/5
      When you're in love with a writer, you have to essentially forget yourself. This is the story of the woman who married Hemmingway. No need to mention her name, it doesn't matter. She is absorbed into his very being, entwined with his friends, engulfed into his moods and relegated to standing outside his writing, looking in. Part beautiful, part immensely sad. Such devotion. The cast of literary characters in this clique has always made me envious, just to have sat nearby and listened.. as Hadley Richardson did. Mrs. Hemmingway. McLain wove the tapestry tight, delving in to the crux of love, ambition and self service, while allowing the lint of happiness to flitter away. A must read for every Hemmingway fan, especially knowing that truly, behind every successful man is.....
    • 4/5
      If you love the 1920-30's and Paris...you'll love Paris Wife. The bookclub meeting at Kona Stories the 2nd Tuesday just read this book and most everyone really liked it. This book is a delightful story about Hemingway's 1st wife. It was a treat to walk down memory lane with her and visit all the old friends from that time in Paris.
    • 4/5
      Very interesting story about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley. Since I'm not much of a Hemingway fan, I learned so much from this book. Having been to his house in Key West, it was interesting to find out that he lived there with his second wife, the "other woman" of this novel. Great read!
    • 5/5
      I don't know how accurate it was, but a fantastic read.
    • 3/5
      Years ago I read Moveable Feast so I knew of the life Hadley and Ernest Hemingway had in Paris. This very good book filled the before and after of those years. worth the read.
    • 4/5
      Revealing look into the life of Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley. Fascinating background on the lives of the famous writers and authors, especially their wild lifestyle during the roaring 20s, with a much more tolerant attitude toward homosexuality. Unfortunately, Hemingway was such a dickhead that it made me dislike him a lot.
    • 3/5
      Not a bad read, especially for those who love fictional accounts of fringe historical characters.
    • 4/5
      Just finished this, and I'm still processing parts of it - however, here it goes. I do NOT understand life in the early 1900s. I mean, on the one hand, we have a newly married couple who can hardly make ends meet. She's not working, even though it wouldn't be wrong for her to do so, and yet they hire help and flit all around Europe for months on end? Am I missing something? I know there are times where it seems that the rich friends cover the costs, I just don't quite understand this part.

      As for the writing - I loved it. I adored the way that the story was told through Hadley's point of view, but with just a tad of Ernest's thrown in for clarification. Hadley's perspective was one that wasn't caught up in the partying, but stayed more down to earth and actually seemed to take on a realistic tone to it, somewhat more objective in ways.

      Now, onto the characters (or actual people, I suppose). McLain tells us in her epilogue that they're BASED on the real Hadley and Ernest, but that they are fictional, so I'll go with characters. I'm sort of irritated at both of them, and don't even get me started on the nicknames - so confusing at times! ;)

      First of all, Ernest - seriously, dude. Emotional, are we? I guess that seems to be the case with many of the creative folks, but he takes intensity to a whole different level. Plus, don't even get me started on the backstabbing that went on with "the other woman." I DID enjoy that at the end, you learned that the leopard (Ernest) really never did change his spots - 4 wives and multiple lovers? Karma.

      As for Hadley - I grew tired of her lack of independence. I loved that she was there for her husband, because you don't see too much of that anymore, but hated how it always seemed to come at the expense of her. It's frequently mentioned how her clothes were worn and not attractive, and you get the sense at times that she's quite frumpy. Of course later, she's looking good, but still doesn't appear stylish. I just wish she would have demonstrated more self confidence. She frequently let people walk all over her and worried about it - Kate, Ernest, Pauline, and even to a certain degree, the friends of Ernest so as not to shed a bad light on him. I was so excited with her concert as I thought it might give her a chance to shine, but alas - NO.

      I enjoyed the overall read, and enjoyed the link to his life - I remember having to read Hemingway when I was in high school (The Old Man and the Sea - didn't enjoy it at the time). Don't know if this will spur me to read The Sun Also Rises or A Moveable Feast...perhaps.
    • 4/5
      Moderately interesting novel about Ernest Hemingway's first marriage and his wife, Hadley, but not one that I would make a point to recommend.
    • 3/5
      Could not get past the halfway point, returned it to the library. Flat, affectless prose; story is a chronological fictionalized biography, without charm or passion.
    • 3/5
      Ok, a little boring at times, but overall well done
    • 5/5
      I could not put this book down. I was never a huge Hemmingway fan but this book kindled an interest in his works. I loved the storyline and couldn't get enough of the peak into Hemmingway's crazy life.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars really. It took me a long to finish this story, but I did enjoy it. I didn't really know much about Hemingway or any of his wives, but this story made me want to learn more. It was wonderfully executed and really brought to life the historical characters.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book told from Hemingway's first wifes point of view. An amazing portrait of Hemingway and Paris life in the 20s.