Ernest Hemingway lived a colorful, if angst ridden life; his early years are chronicled in this new novel, beginning in 1920 Chicago and tracing Hemingway’s rise to published author, following Hemingway and his first wife to Paris where they involve themselves with the artsy American ex-patriots, including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, the Fitzgeralds and the Murphy’s, all living in Paris. Ernest meets his first wife Hadley when she is twenty-nine and he is twenty –one. After an intense, whirlwind courtship, the two marry and move to Europe with Paris as their base, traveling the continent while Ernest writes and begins his transformation into the great American novelist Papa Hemingway.
This book evokes the literary scene in Paris between the wars so realistically it is as if you have stopped for tea or scotch with one of the great writers of the time. Not only is the setting marvelous, but the transformation of Hadley of Hadley from an unsure homebody to the wife of a well-known figure, to a strong, independent woman who knows her own mind. McLain’s writing is so intimate that you will become immersed in Hadley and Ernest’s world and find the time passing much too quickly.
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