The Paris Wife

A Novel

By: Paula McLain

Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie

Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

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 28-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 onto 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.

©2011 Paula Mclain (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

“McLain smartly explores Hadley's ambivalence about her role as supportive wife to a budding genius.... Women and book groups are going to eat up this novel.” (USA Today)

“By making the ordinary come to life, McLain has written a beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s - as a wife and one's own woman.... McLain's vivid, clear-voiced novel is a conjecture, an act of imaginary autobiography on the part of the author. Yet her biographical and geographical research is so deep, and her empathy for the real Hadley Richardson so forthright (without being intrusively femme partisan), that the account reads as very real indeed.” (Entertainment Weekly)

“Written much in the style of Nancy Horan's Loving Frank ... Paula McLain's fictional account of Hemingway's first marriage beautifully captures the sense of despair and faint hope that pervaded the era and their marriage.” (Associated Press)

Hadley's Story

Hadley is young, Ernest is unknown, and The Hemingways are trying to thread their way through the Jazz Age in Paris as they struggle with their relationships with each other, with their "set", and with the glitterati of the times, depression, and alcohol. Exceedingly well done piece of historical fiction that captures the mood and the times and the launching of Papa Heminway into the pantheon of of tortured literary greats while Hadley went on to live a happy and rewarding life in her own right. She has always been blamed for losing his papers that signaled the beginning of the unforgivable end for them. In my opinion (and the author implies), he would have left her for the next bright young thing any way. - Good book! Well done.

Under estimated First Wife

She took the first of Hemingway as an “adult” man and explains their time together in a loving yet truthful way.

Terrible reading

Can’t get past the narrator’s juvenile tone. The story seems interesting so I will read the remaining chapters without narration.

Rewarding use of a credit

I loved this book. It gave the other side of the story to Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast." I would recommend reading (or listening) to Hemingway's book first, then listen to this one. It fills in a lot of blanks and gives more detail to what their life might have been like during the Paris years. .This story gave a life-like depiction of Hemingway (warts and all) and the writer he was through the eyes of the woman closest to him.
I wasn't sure about the narrator at first, but I quckly got used to her voice, and before long, it seemed as if I were listening to Hadley herself tell her story, and the narration of the other characters being as Hadley would have heard and imitated them. I just may listen to this one again someday.

Very Well written memoir to a time

The story is a but sad really. But the book is well written and compelling. Sometimes the narrator's voice for other characters is not the best but the book and the story are wonderful if you want to know more about this time in Paris, these writers and artists.

Hadley's story

In this historical fiction, Paula McLain gives wonderful voice to Hadley, Hemingway's first wife and the driving force behind his early success. It is wonderfully evocative and I suggest a follow up of listening to A Moveable Feast, the latest edition, which is the least edited and most true to his actual writing, containing many passages, in mulitple forms, that were edited out of the posthumously published original. One thing you will also notice: what a wonderful job McLain does in capturing the essence of the character of Hadley in her book--because Hemmingway's writing mirrors it exactly.

Interesting idea...

Hemingway is shown as a selfish drunk who loved too much and too well. Him I liked; Hadley, on the other hand, is described as a Victorian with little sense of self. As much as Hem is overly macho, I couldn't empathize with her because she allows some of the situations to manifest. Well written book with full characters that made me want to scream!

A bit simplistic but good story

Would you listen to The Paris Wife again? Why?

Yes, because I liked the story. I found myself going to the Internet and looking up Hemmingway's life before the end because I wanted to see what part was true and what fictionalized.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Hard to stay. I guess Hadley because the story was in her voice.

Have you listened to any of Carrington MacDuffie’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No. She was clear and it was easy to distinguish characters.

If you could take any character from The Paris Wife out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Hemmingway, although I think I would find him dangerously seductive. After all, he had a pattern of marrying women then dumping them for another while still married.

Any additional comments?

This book did not get a 5 star because there was something a little bit slow about it and the writing was a little simplistic next to other audiobooks I've listened to. I almost put it away after the first part, but after I got through a rather banal beginning, the story line started to pick up and then I had to finish it.

An amazing love story

This book had such a great love story. The imagery created by the author is outstanding. I found myself completely involved in the book and recommending it to anyone who love a good romance or history.

Whiney

The story was compelling and even entertaining but the performance voice for the Paris Wife was annoying to the point of an irritating whine. It took endurance to get through the story with that "poor me whine".