Paula McLain
Paula McLain received an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan and has been awarded fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the author of two collections of poetry as well as a memoir, Like Family: Growing Up in Other People’s Houses, and a first novel, A Ticket to Ride.
With The Paris Wife, Paula has earned the kind of attention writers dream of. A national bestseller, with rights sold in 10 territories worldwide, the wide appeal of the novel is evident. At the end of A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway wrote of his first wife Hadley, “I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.” Painting a more complex portrait of Ernest Hemingway than many of us have come to expect, McLain transports us through Hadley’s eyes into the sumptuous, bohemian world of 1920s Paris and into the heart of a marriage that played a pivotal role in Ernest Hemingway’s budding literary career. The immediacy and intimacy of Hadley’s voice is irresistible; and as a woman coming into her own amidst such literary legends as Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and her own husband, Hadley emerges as an unforgettable heroine.
(Courtesy of Random House)
A Talk with Paula McLain Author of The Paris Wife
Hadley Richardson was Ernest Hemingway’s first wife; yet for many of us, she is largely unknown, a woman at the fringes of literary history. Why did you decide to write a novel about her, and why did you choose THE PARIS WIFE as your title?
I first came to know Hadley in the pages of A Moveable Feast, Hemingway’s remarkable memoir of his years in Paris. His reminiscences of Hadley were so moving that I decided to seek out biographies of her life—and that’s when I knew what I’d found something special. Her voice and the arc of her life were riveting. She’s the perfect person to show us a side of Hemingway we’ve never seen before—tender, vulnerable, and very human—but she’s also an extraordinary person in her own right.
As for the book’s title, although to many Hadley might simply appear to be Hemingway’s “Paris wife”—the way Pauline Pfeiffer became known as his “Key West wife” and Martha Gelhorn as his “Spanish Civil War wife”—Hadley was actually fundamental to the rest of his life and career. He couldn’t have become the writer we know now without her influence.
How did you go about re-creating the world that Hadley and Ernest inhabited?
I began by reading biographies of them both, their correspondence, and Hemingway’s work from that time—particularly The Sun Also Rises and his story collection In Our Time. A Moveable Feast was also enormously useful, as were several other biographies—on Stein, the Fitzgeralds, the Murphy’s—and books about what Paris in the 20’s. What a singular time in history! It was thrilling to be with them in the cafés, in the middle of those quintessential conversations.
At a certain point, however, it was equally important for me to close the books, step away from the historical record, and simply immerse myself in the world I was creating. Biographies can only be so useful to a novelist interested in the story beyond the facts on record, complete with emotional intricacies a biographer would never presume to know. For instance, the dénouement of the Hemingway’s marriage, from Pauline Pfeiffer’s arrival of Schruns to the end of the “dangerous summer” in Antibes and Pamplona, occupies five pages in the most well-regarded biography of Hemingway’s life—but it’s the absolute core of my story.
Why did Hadley and Ernest fall for each other? Many of their friends seemed to find it an unlikely pairing, especially given the fact that Hadley was several years older and less worldly than her husband.
Ernest was awfully young when he proposed—off the cuff in a letter, no less—but he seemed to know instinctively that in order to pursue his wildly ambitious creative path, he would need to be anchored by someone like Hadley, who was not just solid and reliable, but absolutely real. She trusted the essence of their partnership, too, the way they brought out the best in each other, and so was able to take the leap. It was a leap too—this small-town, “Victorian” girl moving to Bohemian Paris—but one that paid off in spades. She said later that when she decided to hook her star to Ernest’s she exploded into life.
The Ernest Hemingway we meet in THE PARIS WIFE—through Hadley’s eyes—is in many ways different from the way many of us envision him today. What was he like as a young man and a budding novelist?
The myth and reputation of the later Hemingway—all swagger and feats of bravery—stands in sharp contrast to his twenty-something self, and makes him all the more fascinating to me. He had incredibly high ideals as a young man, was sensitive and easily hurt. Hadley often spoke of his “opaque eyes,” which showed every thought and feeling. She would know in an instant if she’d wounded him, and then feel terrible. That vulnerability alone will surprise many readers, I think.
In THE PARIS WIFE, Ernest and Hadley’s romance blossoms through a series of letters. Indeed, he proposes through the mail. Are these letters drawn from real life, and can you imagine anything like that happening in today’s world?
Ernest and Hadley burned up the postal lines between St. Louis and Chicago. Hundreds and hundreds of pages flew back and forth, and they essentially fell in love that way. Most of Ernest’s letters to Hadley have been lost or destroyed, but he saved every letter she ever wrote to him. Her charm and candor and winning humor come through in every line. In her first letter to him, for instance, she wrote, “Do you want to smoke in the kitchen? Should say I do!” I fell in love with her too!
The Hemingways originally planned to go to Rome in 1920, but they opted for Paris instead at the suggestion of Sherwood Anderson. What was life like for them when they first arrived in Paris? Did Ernest and Hadley fall in love with it immediately?
Ernest loved Paris immediately—their working-class neighborhood, the raw and real quality of peasant life. He trusted that in a way he didn’t trust the “artists” talking rot and drinking themselves sick in the cafés. He was such a purist then! Hadley definitely needed more time to warm up to Bohemian Paris, which couldn’t have been more different from what she knew in St. Louis. When it did begin to grow on her, it was the intellectual life that appealed to her most, smart and interesting people engaged in something new and fresh. She loved great conversation and didn’t want to be put in a corner with the “wives,” the way she often was at Gertrude Stein’s famous salon.
Throughout THE PARIS WIFE, Hadley refers to herself as “Victorian” as opposed to “modern.” Why, and how did that impact her life in Paris and relationship with Ernest?
Hadley didn’t have the edge, hunger or shrewdness she saw in the modern girls around her, and often didn’t think she could compete with those women, dressed to the nines and exuding sexual confidence in the cafés. After she became a mother, she felt this even more sharply. She began to worry that Ernest’s head would be turned, that she couldn’t keep up with him. She was right, ultimately, but I couldn’t help admiring Hadley’s old-fashioned quality, the way she remained herself in a thorny and volatile world.
Their marriage survived for many years in a bohemian environment that discouraged monogamy. Why was theirs such a powerful and fruitful partnership?
They understood each other profoundly, and they knew that what they had was solid and true, and incredibly rare. He opened her up and encouraged her to live more broadly, more passionately. She anchored him, made him feel safe and loved and free to pursue his genius. They actually complemented each other perfectly.
Most of THE PARIS WIFE is written in Hadley’s voice; but you decided to write a few passages in Ernest’s voice. What challenges did you face in depicting his marriage and the world through his eyes?
The number one challenge was simply having the confidence to believe I could channel his voice and consciousness, and pull it off. The leanness and muscularity of the prose felt exotic, not at all like my natural style, but was ultimately liberating and ridiculously fun.
I also think that seeing their world through his point of view helped me identify and sympathize with him in important ways. This is a more complex and balanced portrayal than I first intended to write, and a truer one I think.
One of the most wrenching scenes in the book is when Hadley loses a valise containing all of Ernest’s work to date. Did that really happen? Did it mark a turning point in their marriage, and if so how did things change?
That did happen, unfortunately, and in some ways their marriage never recovered. It’s not that Ernest believed Hadley lost the manuscripts on purpose, trying to sabotage his career (as some biographers and critics have suggested), but it did introduce a potentially irrevocable flaw. Ernest required absolute loyalty and reliability, and he began to wonder if he could trust her. More importantly, he wondered if she could really understand what his work meant to him, how it was part of his soul. If she could leave the manuscripts unattended on a train, could she really know how valuable they were? What they were worth?
In THE PARIS WIFE, when Ernest receives his contract for In Our Time, you write, “He would never again be unknown. We would never again be this happy.” How did fame affect Ernest and his relationship with Hadley?
It’s a powerful seduction to have knowledgeable people whispering in your ear that you’re a genius. It was too much for Ernest. The more susceptible he became to the opinions and manipulations of others, the more he lost sight of what he’d always admired and found true. Certain friends believed he needed a woman who moved at a faster pace than Hadley, one who could help him move to the next phase of his career. He never forgave himself for listening to that advice.
How had Hadley changed by the end of her marriage?
Even with the failure of the Hemingway’s marriage, Hadley is better off having known and loved Ernest. If you think of the emotional pain and physical restriction of her girlhood, you see how dramatic her change is. She blooms in her years with Ernest, and discovers a strength and resilience she didn’t know she had. Motherhood changes her too—she finds her purpose, her core. In the end, the resources she finds in herself over the course of her marriage to Ernest help her survive the pain of its unraveling.
Do you think Ernest realized what he had lost, in the end?
I do. Each of his three subsequent marriages was marked with discord and turbulence. Late in his life, it was obvious he longed for the innocence and pure goodness of his life with Hadley—a longing that colors A Moveable Feast so poignantly. “The more I see of all the members of your sex,” he wrote Hadley in 1940, “the more I admire you.” She remained untainted in his mind, an ideal that persisted to remind him that the best luck and truest love he’d ever had he found with her.