a paris wife by paula mclain review

the novel 'the paris wife' is written from the view of the protagonist, Ernest Hemingway's first wife Hadley. I was hooked right from the start of this book with the honest description and compelling detail of setting and dialogue. Hadley falls in love with the mysterious Ernest Hemingway and wallows in the midst of a lot of famous people. The book is set during the 1920's, when infidelity wasn't uncommon, but athletically built but somewhat slow Hadley doesn't catch on with her husbands antics, as they live in the golden jazz age in paris. their marriage begins to spiral into turnmoil after Hadley's clumsiness leads to her losing a valise of Ernest Hemingway's early work on a train. 

the one fault in this novel is McLain portrays Hadley as a slight bore with little substance, where as in Hemingway's 'a moveable feast' she's shown to be more lively and naturally intriguing, but of course that's her personality from Hemingway's point of view and could have been masked by his love. the readers draw their own conclusions of Hadley's character but McLain relies on clumsily written foreshadowing to convey her desires. 

the paris wife is a heartbreaking novel which relies on historic research and details to keep the reader interested throughout despite it's intriguing beginning. I would totally recommend it to anyone who likes Hemingway's later work and especially his novel 'the sun also rises'.