by Naomi Scott
This was one of the books I picked up from a neighbour’s stall at our village VE Day event, six months ago. I had heard of this book, published in 2014, but it had not appealed to me greatly and I feared it was ‘chick lit’. Which it is, to some extent – but I wanted to read something light just now.
The story is an imagination of the relationships between the writer Ernest Hemingway and each of his four wives, told from the perspective of the wives. Each section is named after a wife: Hadley, Fife, Martha and Mary. Within each section there are chapters dealing with the early days of the relationship, and others showing its eventual breakup – the latter generally precipitated by the arrival on the scene of the next potential wife.
The author shows the wives communicating with each other, not only at the time of the relationships but long after one or both of them had left Hemingway’s life. I can only assume that this is attested in correspondence between them that is still in the archive; button doubt it it embellished by the author’s imagination.
Although this was an easy read, it took me a while to get through this book – perhaps because it never really ‘grabbed’ me. It did prompt me to read up a bit about Hemingway’s life: particularly its end, which his wife initially suggested was an accident with a gun, but later admitted was suicide.
The novel is satisfying because it sheds light on the wives as well as Hemingway himself. The settings (and clearly the author has visited the Hemingway houses in Cuba and Key West – well, who wouldn’t?) come across as authentic. The constant drinking is mentioned without being either over- or under-emphasised. All in all, a satisfying and readable book.
A rug and a book 