Paula McLain: The Paris Wife

“Can I get you anything?” Paul said after a while, stepping back from me and cupping my shoulders with his hands.

“No,” I said, and my own voice sounded strange and separate in the room. Tatie was dead. There was nothing Paul could possibly do for me except let me go-back to Paris and Pamplona and San Sebastian, back to Chicago when I was Hadley Richardson, a girl stepping off a train about to meet the man who would change her life. That girl, that impossibly lucky girl, needed nothing.

First and foremost, I need to thank my agent, Julie Barer, whose absolute investment in this project was obvious (and so very crucial) from word one. The completely brilliant Susanna Porter was vital in bringing the book to its final form and nothing less than my dream editor. I’m deeply appreciative for the support and assistance of so many at Ballantine Books and Random House, including Libby McGuire, Kim Hovey, Theresa Zoro, Kristin Fassler, Quinne Rogers, Deborah Foley, Steve Messina, Jillian Quint, and Sophie Epstein. William Boggess at Barer Literary fielded every desperate phone call with aplomb and has been indispensable to the process. Many thanks to Ursula Doyle, Victoria Pepe, and Virago, Kristen Cochrane and Doubleday Canada, as well as Caspian Dennis of Abner Stein and Nicki Kennedy, Sam Edenborough, and all at ILA.

Special appreciation goes to friends and early readers Glori Simmons, Lori Keene, Brian Groh, Anne Ursu, Alice D’Alessio, Sarah Willis, Terry Dubow, Toni Thayer and the East Side Writers, Denise Machado and John Sargent, Paul Cox and Kirsten Docter, Pam and Doug O’Hara, Tawny Ratner and the Cedar Hill Walking Club, William Joson, Becky Gaylord, Heather Greene, Amy Weinfurtner, Margaret Cohen and Patricia Kao, Suzannah Hagan, and Karen Rosenberg. Also to Karen Long of the Cleveland Plain Dealer , Judith Mansour at the LIT, Jim Harms and Jacqueline Gens of the MFA Program in Poetry at New England College, and many dear colleagues and students over the years.

I owe my family much for their unending patience and encouragement-Greg D’Alessio, Connor, Fiona, and Beckett, D’Alessios far and wide, Julie Hayward, Rita Hinken, and, finally, my wonderful, unflappable sisters, Teresa Reller and Penny Pennington. Many thanks and much love to all.

Although Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway, and other people who actually lived appear in this book as fictional characters, it was important for me to render the particulars of their lives as accurately as possible, and to follow the very well documented historical record. The true story of the Hemingways’ marriage is so dramatic and compelling, and has been so beautifully treated by Ernest Hemingway himself in A Moveable Feast , that my intention became to push deeper into the emotional lives of the characters and bring new insight to historical events, while staying faithful to the facts. Along the way, I’ve been very grateful for a number of sources, including Hadley: The First Mrs. Hemingway by Alice Hunt Sokoloff, Hadley by Gioia Diliberto, The Hemingway Women by Bernice Kert, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story and Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917-1961 by Carlos Baker, Hemingway: The Paris Years and Hemingway: The American Homecoming by Michael Reynolds, and The True Gen by Denis Brian. Enormously useful to my understanding of Paris in the twenties and other details of place and time were The Crazy Years by William Wiser, Paris Was Yesterday by Janet Flanner, Living Well Is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins, Zelda by Nancy Milford, The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell, and Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein . Susan Wrynn and Sam Smallidge of the Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library in Boston were very helpful as I navigated a wealth of materials, including correspondence between Hadley Richardson and Ernest Hemingway, as well as Hemingway’s writings in manuscript form. Finally I’m indebted to many of Ernest Hemingway’s works in addition to A Moveable Feast , mostly notably In Our Time, The Sun Also Rises, The Garden of Eden, Death in the Afternoon , and The Complete Short Stories .

1. In many ways, Hadley’s girlhood in St. Louis was a difficult and repressive experience. How do her early years prepare her to meet and fall in love with Ernest? What does life with Ernest offer her that she hasn’t encountered before? What are the risks?

2. Hadley and Ernest don’t get a lot of encouragement from their friends and family when they decided to marry. What seems to draw the two together? What are some of the strengths of their initial attraction and partnership? The challenges?

3. The Ernest Hemingway we meet in THE PARIS WIFE-through Hadley’s eyes-is in many ways different from the ways we imagine him when faced with the largeness of his later persona. What do you see as his character strengths? Can you see what Hadley saw in him?

4. The Hemingways spontaneously opt for Paris over Rome when the get key advice from Sherwood Anderson. What was life like for them when they first arrived? How did Hadley’s initial feelings about Paris differ from Ernest’s and why?

5. Throughout THE PARIS WIFE, Hadley refers to herself as “Victorian” as opposed to “modern.” What are some of the ways she doesn’t feel like she fits into life in bohemian Paris? How does this impact her relationship with Ernest? Her self-esteem? What are some of the ways Hadley’s “old-fashioned” quality can be seen as a strength and not a weakness?

6. Hadley and Ernest’s marriage survived for many years in Jazz-Age Paris, an environment that had very little patience for monogamy and other traditional values. What in their relationship seems to sustain them? How does their marriage differ from those around them? Pound’s and Shakespeare’s? Scott and Zelda’s?

7. Most of THE PARIS WIFE is written in Hadley’s voice, but a few select passages come to us from Ernest’s point of view. What impact does getting Ernest’s perspective have on our understanding of their marriage? How does it affect your ability to understand him and his motivations in general?

8. What was the role of literary spouses in 1920’s Paris? How is Hadley challenged and restricted by her gender? Would those restrictions have changed if she had been an artist and not merely a “wife”?

9. At one point, Ezra Pound warns Hadley that it would be a dire mistake to let parenthood change Ernest. Is there a nugget of truth behind his concern? What are some of the ways Ernest is changed by Bumby’s birth? What about Hadley? What does motherhood bring to her life, for better or worse?

10. One of the most wrenching scenes in the book is when Hadley loses a valise containing all of Ernest’s work to date. What kind of turning point does this mark for the Hemingway’s marriage? Do you think Ernest ever forgives her?

11. When the couple moves to Toronto to have Bumby, Ernest tries his best to stick it out with a regular “nine-to-five” reporter’s job, and yet he ultimately finds this impossible. Why is life in Toronto so difficult for Ernest? Why does Hadley agree to go back to Paris earlier than they planned, even though she doesn’t know how they’ll make it financially? How does she benefit from supporting his decision to make a go at writing only fiction?

12. Hadley and Ernest had similar upbringings in many ways. What are the parallels, and how do these affect the choices Hadley makes as a wife and mother?