Costco Connection - December 2012

book pıck
A big love and a big idea

The unlikely love story behind Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage

FRANCEFREEMAN

By Judi Ketteler

Hemingway could not have become Hemingway
without her, but also because she was drawn into the
romance of it. “Their love story just had such a mag-
netic pull for me,” she says. Their big love was exactly
the big idea she was looking for, and the result was
The Paris Wife.

PAULA MCLAIN WAS starting to think that all of the good book ideas were gone—used by other writers. She says, “I’d pick up a book at a bookstore and think, ‘Well, that’s a great idea—why didn’t I think of it?’ ”

Having received a master of fine arts degree from the University of Michigan and published two collections of poetry, a memoir and her first novel, McLain was hardly a beginner.

But when she started thinking about her second novel, she was at a loss. “I just felt flat, like I had no big ideas,” she says via a phone interview.

And then, quite by chance, she stum-
bled upon A Moveable Feast, Ernest
Hemingway’s memoir of his early years in
Paris, before he became a giant of American
literature. She was taken by the moving
way in which he wrote about his first wife,
The idea of treading on the hallowed ground of
Ernest Hemingway and the Lost Generation was ter-
rifying. And there was the practical matter of learning
everything she could about Hadley. She read biogra-
phies of both Hadley and Hemingway.
But what allowed her to really inhabit the
voice of Hadley were the letters: thou-
sands of pages of love letters written
between the two of them during their
courtship. “Reading the letters, I would
just deliciously disappear into the story,”
McLain says. That’s when she knew she
could capture Hadley’s voice.

STEPHEN CUTRI

Paula McLain

Hadley Richardson. “It was both a tender and a vague account of his marriage to her,” McLain says.

Hadley was 28 years old to Hemingway’s 20 when they met in 1920. She was quiet and unfussy and very much a late bloomer. How did she wind up marrying Ernest Hemingway and having adventures all over Europe with him? McLain wondered. “It was so unlikely that she would get to have this big life,” she tells The Connection.

McLain immediately wanted to know Hadley
better—not just because it was so clear that
While The Paris Wife faithfully fol-
lows the facts of their years in Paris,
McLain had to create an interior life for
Hadley is fascinating in her own right, but her
life also gives us another view of a world many of us
learned about in our high school and college litera-
ture classes. Through Hadley, readers discover that
underneath the masculine bravado of Hemingway
was a mass of goo. This was a huge revelation for
McLain as well: “Seeing what Hadley saw helped me
have compassion for him. I was surprised by his vul-
nerability and what a romantic he was.”

times feel like I have Hadley to thank for all of it,

“The book has blown off the sky for me,”
McLain says. It’s been tremendously successful, but
it’s also received high praise from critics. “I some-
times feel like I have Hadley to thank for all of it,
because without having found her, none of this
would have happened.”
Life is busy these days for the mother of three,
Life is busy these days for the mother of three,
but she has found another excuse to travel from her

Cleveland home back to Paris: her next book. It’s a novel about Marie Curie, set in Paris in 1894. “It’s a story about glass ceilings,” she says, “but also it’s a love story.”

i
If The Paris Wife is any indication,
we’ll most likely get a whole new view of
what we thought we knew about the
pioneering scientist. C

we’ll most likely get a whole new view of

COSTCO HAS 50 SIGNED COPIES of Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife to give away. To enter, go to Costco. com, search for “DecBook Pick” and follow the instructions. Or print your name, address and daytime phone number on a postcard or letter and send it to: Paula McLain, The Costco Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-1088.

NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes is sponsored by Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received by January 1, 2013. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before February 1, 2013. The value of the prize is $15. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or Random House and their families are not eligible. Signed book giveaway

IF I WERE TO SAY the
name Ernest Hemingway,
would a love story come
to mind? My guess is that
most of you would think
of his time spent as a war
correspondent, his novels
or his tragic end. In this
month’s Book Buyer’s Pick,
The Paris Wife, by Paula
McLain, readers get a look
at an oft-hidden side of the
great writer: Hemingway
in love.
The novel begins the
day Hadley Richardson
meets a young—and
already larger-than-life—
Ernest Hemingway. After
a whirlwind courtship, they
sail to Paris, where they are
part of the Lost Generation.
Hadley was the ;rst of
Hemingway’s four wives,
so it’s no secret that their
relationship didn’t last.
Nonetheless, I kept hoping
for the best. At the end, all
that was left was praise for
McLain for giving readers
such a lovely, moving and
haunting book.