Book Club Chat

By Chris O'Brien, Leader of Questers Book Club

The Questers Book Club met Wednesday, Oct. 11 to discuss The Paris Wife by Paula McClain. The Questers rated this book a 3.1, with much lively discussion, including some honest criticism. However, those of us who have never read any of Hemingway’s works left the discussion with serious intention of doing so. 

The author writes on her website that when she began to research her book, beginning with biographies of Hemingway and Hadley, and with their delicious correspondence, she knew the actual story of the Hemingway’s marriage was near perfect.  It was a ready-made novel, ripe for the picking. She did not have to invent a plot for them, nor did she want to. She used the framework of historical documentation to push into the characters’ hearts and minds, discovering their motivations, their deepest wishes.

The most important step for the author was getting Hadley’s voice. She has very little dialogue in A Moveable Feast, but what there is, is so evocative. It led the author to seek out the letters Hadley wrote to Ernest during their courtship, and that’s when she knew she could write the book. Her speech rhythms, her intelligence and charm and sense of humor all come through with clarity and effervescence. She says she fell in love with them both.

Then things began to unravel. Hadley lost a briefcase that contained four years of Hemingway’s work. McLain says that Hemingway never really forgave her for that. It was symbolic of how different they were.

Hemingway was single-minded about his writing. Hadley was the homemaker and mother, taking care of the child they nicknamed “Bumby.” Finally, Hemingway began having an affair with one of Hadley’s friends, a glamorous young journalist named Pauline Pfeiffer.

During the time Pauline was pursuing Ernest, she never lost this pretense that she was also Hadley’s best friend --- she was sending letters to them both. The letters to Ernest were letters to a lover. And the letters to Hadley were sort of eerily asking for approval.

The marriage finally fell apart after one disastrous summer, when the three members of the love triangle vacationed together on the Riviera. They spent the trip in the company of the rich and sophisticated Sara and Gerald Murphy, who loved to entertain talented artists and writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Many years later, Hadley, who by then had been happily remarried for many years, told an interviewer how glad she was when the marriage finally ended.

“Ernest was a terrific responsibility. And when he was not happy, when he was leading a double life and everything, it was just awfully hard. I just didn’t care for it.”

But Hadley also told the interviewer that she still cared for Hemingway and thought he was a great man. For his part, Hemingway seemed to regret what had happened to their marriage in Paris.

Hemingway was married four times, and Pfeiffer became his second wife. Yet he seemed to have a great affection for Hadley Richardson until the end of his life.  Neither of them ever seemed to forget what it was like to be young and in love in beautiful Paris.