This fascinating and touching story of Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage is told from the point of view of his wife, Hadley, who he met in 1920. Hadley tells the story of their whirlwind romance, their marriage and the intensity of their love. The book itself becomes the story of their gradually deteriorating marriage and provides a snapshot of an iconic literary generation.
The young couple set up in a garret in Paris and struggle to form friendships within their literary and artistic world – Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein become mentors to the young Hemingway. McLain colourfully depicts Hemingway’s creative insecurity, Hadley’s loneliness and their various attempts at friendships. There is poignancy to how the young lovers view the destructive relationships around them and think that their marriage will never be like that. For anyone with an interest in Scott Fitzgerald, the presence of Scott and Zelda is a bonus. The Fitzgeralds live a frenetic, gilded life, spending huge amounts of money, in contrast to the Hemingways who are short of money and desperate for literary recognition.
In many ways the book is as much a snapshot of this literary generation as a story of one couples’ marriage. Hemingway’s trips to Spain and his fascination with bull-fighting are well known, but are atmospherically described in this novel. A pivotal episode is where Hadley, his abused and neglected wife, describes a toxic combination of physical fear and exhilaration at the bull fight, literary competitiveness and insecurity, and sexual tension as Ernest and Harold Loeb engage in competitive flirting with another woman. It suggests that Hemingway consciously created an emotional cauldron in order to give himself the creative charge to write.
My sympathy for Ernest Hemingway had begun to wane by this point. Their world gets ever more complicated, brittle and sad. It is a moving and interesting novel, and one that made me want to go and rediscover Ernest Hemingway.
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