The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

This is the story of Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson, whom he married as a young man just returned from WWI.  Shortly after marriage the young couple moves to Paris to join the “Lost Generation” and be in the thick of it to help Hemingway thrive as a writer.  Jazz Age Paris comes alive and so do the personalities including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and the Fitzgeralds.

It did take me a while to get into this book.  I was reading it for a book club otherwise I may not have stuck with it.  Apparently that is the reaction of half the people who read the book – the other half are swept away immediately.

If you’ve read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway you get the whole backstory of that classic fiction tale.  It’s interesting to see how art imitates life.