Fabulous Fiction Firsts #245

Wed, 02/23/2011 - 8:09pm by muffy

Paula McLain will be reading and signing The Paris Wife at Borders on Liberty Street, Wednesday, March 2, at 7 pm.

In Paula McLain's The Paris Wife : a novel * * , Hadley Richardson takes center stage in this fictional biography of a marriage - between a quiet and supportive older woman (by 8 years) to her charismatic and soon-to-be famous husband Ernest "Hem" Hemingway.

Though doomed, the Hemingway marriage had its giddy high points, including a whirlwind courtship and a few fast and furious "gin-soaked and jazz-infused" years in the expatriate lifestyle of the 1920s Paris. Readers are also treated to intimate glimpses of many of the literary giants of the era, including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Much more than a "woman-behind-the-man" homage, this beautifully crafted tale is an unsentimental and yet sympathetic tribute to a woman who acted with grace and strength as her marriage crumbled. Compelling and a pleasure to read.

For background information and research for this novel, here is an interview with the author at The Hemingway Project website. May I also suggest Hadley, a biography by Gioia Diliberto?

Poet Paula McLain (Like Family : Growing up in Other People's Houses : a memoir) received an MFA from the University of Michigan and has been a resident of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. This is the first of her novels in our collection.

* * = Starred reviews