The Paris Wife

The Paris Wife (2012), a historical novel by Paula McLain, recounts a fictionalized version of the real-life courtship between author Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley Richardson.

In the novel, Ernest and Hadley meet in 1920 at a party thrown by Hadley’s best friend, Kate. Hadley is instantly captivated by Ernest, who is seven years younger than she. Kate refuses to introduce them, implying that she has a past with Ernest, though she will not tell Hadley the details. After another chance meeting, Hadley and Ernest begin writing each other frequent letters.

Ernest is open about his family situation, telling Hadley that he is close to his father but dislikes his domineering mother. Hadley does not talk about her own past in her letters, instead, revealing her history in a series of flashbacks. She has recently lost her sister Dorothea to a gruesome accident and her mother to a lingering illness. In addition, she has a poor relationship with her surviving sister, Fonnie, who resents Hadley and hopes she never finds romantic fulfillment. In addition, Hadley suffers lingering trauma from an accident in which she was involved when she was a child. She has nervous spells and psychological issues.



Ernest takes a writing assignment in Rome and invites Hadley to travel with him there while posing as his wife. Hadley jumps at the chance, though both her friends and Ernest’s tell them that they are rushing their courtship. Just a few months after meeting each other, Hadley and Ernest decide to get married. Kate admits that she was in love with Ernest and is jealous of his relationship with Hadley. The two women begin to reconcile their relationship.

After the wedding, Hadley and Ernest get a small apartment in Chicago. They frequently struggle with money as Ernest’s writing is rejected more often than it is accepted. Ernest had served in WWI, and PTSD from his time as an ambulance driver begins to manifest in the form of flashbacks and mood swings. A local writer, Sherwood Anderson, recommends that Ernest go to Paris and writes letters of introduction to Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

In 1921, Ernest and Hadley leave for Paris. Hadley is homesick and unhappy. She does not see Ernest often because he is frequently entrenched in his writing. However, she soon makes friends with Dorothy Pound and begins to be accepted into artistic society. With help from his Paris connections, Ernest’s star begins to rise. He gets frequent reporting work as a foreign correspondent and he and Hadley travel around Europe. However, Hadley still feels like an outsider around Ernest and his creative friends.



Hadley accidentally loses all of Ernest’s manuscripts and soon after becomes pregnant. This puts a strain on their relationship until Gertrude Stein helps smooth the matter over. Ernest and Hadley take a trip to Spain to watch the running of the bulls, and Ernest is more confident about the upcoming changes to their family. They suffer through a period of financial difficulty, but things start to look up after the baby is born. Hadley is no longer lonely, and Ernest’s fiction writing career begins to take off.

At a party of creative types in Paris, Hadley’s friend Kitty tells her that she will be leaving Paris. Hadley is upset, but Ernest refuses to take her home. She realizes that he resents her and the baby because they cause him to lose focus from his career. He is also paying attention to other women and seems to be losing touch with his old friends.

Soon, Hemingway begins seeing a woman named Duff. During a trip to Spain, their relationship becomes an open secret, but Hadley decides to stay with Ernest because her family life is relatively comfortable. However, the situation eventually becomes too much to ignore and Hadley returns to Paris, cutting their vacation short. Ernest joins her soon after he finishes the novel he is working on.



However, Hadley and Ernest begin spending an increasing amount of time apart. Ernest is often away on business, while Hadley spends time with cosmopolitan friends from Paris. Ernest meets one of Hadley’s closest friends, Pauline, and the two begin to fall for each other, starting a secret affair. Hadley is devastated when she finds out. Pauline presses Ernest to leave Hadley and marry her, and Ernest is sent into a deep depression.

Finally, Hadley proposes that Ernest and Pauline do not see each other for one hundred days, and if Ernest is still in love with her at the end of that time, he and Hadley will divorce. After Pauline leaves, Ernest moves back in with Hadley and they begin living as husband and wife. However, Ernest cannot get over Pauline and Hadley grants him a divorce. The epilogue reveals that Hadley’s second marriage is a happy and successful one, while Ernest goes on to marry several other women and divorce them all before ultimately ending his own life.