The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

The Two Minute Book Review.  My new experiment is to write a review within minutes of finishing the last line:

“That girl, that impossibly lucky girl, needed nothing” (McLain, 314).

     The girl is Hadley Richardson Hemingway, and the book is The Paris Wife, a novel about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife (2011, Paula McLain). Whatever whirlwinds circle around a reader, pulling them deeper and deeper into a story—desire, pain, fear—whatever whirlwinds gather—this one started in the waters of Lake Michigan and grabbed me and held me down until I came up breathing once again on my own, like Hadley on the final page, needing nothing.

     While down under, The Paris Wife sustained me with characters to love and despise, excuse and forgive, societal transformations to consider, remarkable insights about the writing life, subjects and settings rife with historical and literary importance, beauty and horror.

     I hate the bull fights, never appreciated Hemingway much, but feel ready to dive in again none-the-less. Maybe I wasn’t ready for Hemingway at twenty, or thirty even. The Paris Wife gives me a reason to read him again, more deeply and fully, opens my mind to something unappealing but important. It’s what reading does, and isn’t it what writers do, too?

     What do you think?