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)

Narration Issues

I really wanted to love this story of fiction about real people and at first I thought that it was going to be a great. Then, very quickly, I started to notice that the forceful, over the top narration was distracting me from the writing. I was overpowered by the voices and my mind wandered from what the narrator was saying to how she was saying it. I could not follow and enjoy the story. It was so strange. I think the only way I will be able to get past chapter three is if I read the book in print. In a way the book felt like it was for the young adult audience. Maybe that was just because the narration sounded so juvenile. Giving up.

Interesting and entertaining, well read

I really enjoyed this book and find it hard to understand why so many reviewers criticize the reader. I think she does an excellent job and her voice for Hadley and others in the book fits the time period perfectly. The story is fiction but appears to be very much based on fact. It's a fascinating look at an era and many famous characters, such as F Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein etc.

Couldn't get past the reader

Is this a good book? I'm struggling to decide if I liked it or not. The reader really ruined it for me. She made the characters sound like cartoon characters in a goofy sitcom. Her attempts to sound masculine made me cringe. Perhaps she would be more suited to reading humor or juvenile fiction. I found myself trying to imagine the words read differently...more what I think the author intended, so that I could enjoy the story more. And this was very distracting. I really enjoy reading historical fiction, but I'm not sure if this is one to recommend. Was it as empty and flat as it seemed? Maybe. It kept going through my mind that I was reading fluff, but it could have been the reader that gave me that impression.

overrated

I first tried the book version of Paris Wife and could not get into it. Since I had to "read" it for my bookclub I decided to try audible. I saw the negative reviews on the narrator but forged ahead anyway. I agree that she was hard to listen to, but I couldn't read the hard copy either, so it wasnt the reader that made it intolerable for me. What is it that has made this book so popular? I guess it is just the fascination with Hemingway and the time period. I enjoyed the movie, Midnight in Paris, so I thought I would enjoy this. Instead I found it boring, boring and more boring. I couldn't listen past the first 4 hrs. I tried but it was a waste of time. I just couldn't like or empathize with any of the characters, they were all self-indulgent elitist snobs who acted like spoiled children. I am sure most people will not agree with me, but I really disliked this book.

Good book, not so good reader

As a fan of Ernest Hemingway, I was really looking forward to this book. Several chapters in, I realized that I was not enjoying it. I soon realized that it was not the book itself, but the reader that was getting in my way. Carrington MacDuffie reads this book with a cultured tone that softens the edges of Ernest and his macho friends, and gives a simpering, whiney tone to Hadley. I wish I had chosen to read the book instead.

Good book, terrible narration

Like others have noted, I was distracted from narrative by the prissy and juvenile tone that MacDuffie imparted. I found myself rethinking the lines as she spoke them with how I might have actually read the lines myself. It was like listening to two books simultaneously. I'll stay away from this narrator in the future but not the author.

Good Story - Poor Reader

Excellent fictional insight - terrible reader. I went out and bought the book in lieu of listening past Chapter 4. A wasted credit.

Horrible

Would you try another book from Paula McLain and/or Carrington MacDuffie?

I would not try another book by either McLain or MacDuffie. The narrator definitely ruined the story for me and I wasn't very impressed in the first place with the strength of the writing.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator's style was very much like a parent reading a fairy tale to a toddler. It was horrible. She made the character's dialogue sound like high school drama students. This was especially disappointing considering one of the main characters is Ernest Hemingway!

The Book and the Characters Lack Depth

I was not very bothered by the narrator of this book, but I was bothered by the superficial nature of the story and the characters. I never felt like I got to know or care about the people in this book or what happened to them. It all felt very superficial. The book was trying to be something that didn't quite succeed - like it was trying to be a Gatsby but missed the mark - for me, by a lot.

In reading the other reviews, I wonder if I would have felt differently had I read the book and not listened to it. I did not feel like the narrator was that bad but perhaps her reading of the book gave it the superficial feel, but I don't think so. Unlike another reviewer, I did not feel like Hadley was strong or interesting or that I even was able to sympathize with her plight.
In fact, by the end of the book, I did not feel like I knew her, or Hemingway or anyone else at all.

What the book did accomplish was making me want to go back and read The Sun Also Rises - I hope that reading the book that Hemingway wrote about this same time period will tell me a lot more about the characters than Paula McLain did.

Excellent listen!

I don't have much to add to the previous review. But the genre of fiction "based on" fact is an interesting one, probably challenging for the writer. What to leave in, what to leave out, etc. This book inspired me to research Hemingway for more details on his fantastic, adventurous life.

This could be the start of a possible series on the Hemingway wives and the transitions amongst them.