#BookReview Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood

‘To lose his ability to write was to have lost the ability to clear his mind of itself’

Mrs Hemingway is the gloriously heartbreaking novel from Naomi Wood about the lives of the four wives of Ernest Hemingway. Such incredible women, such amazing stories. If, like me, this is an era that evokes images of a 1920s sun-washed Antibes coastline and a hot and humid Cuba, then I recommend you pick up a copy.

Originally published in 2014, I am delighted to have picked up a copy of Mrs Hemingway recently. I took my time reading it as I savoured every single word. My review is a little more compact than normal as, initially, I was not going to post a review here at all…but it is such a beautiful book that I felt the need to shout about it a little 🙂

I do hope you enjoy…

About The Book:

In the dazzling summer of 1926, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley travel from their home in Paris to a villa in the south of France. They swim, play bridge and drink gin. But wherever they go they are accompanied by the glamorous and irrepressible Fife. Fife is Hadley’s best friend. She is also Ernest’s lover…

Hadley is the first Mrs. Hemingway, but neither she nor Fife will be the last. Over the ensuing decades, Ernest’s literary career will blaze a trail, but his marriages will be ignited by passion and deceit. Four extraordinary women will learn what it means to love the most famous writer of his generation…

My Review:

‘And the world is done’ 

Mrs Hemingway is a novel that I absolutely devoured as I was transported back to a time that has always held great fascination for me. Naomi Wood has brought the lives of the four Mrs. Hemingways together in this imagined account of the complex life of a very complicated and troubled man, Ernest Hemingway.

Having read a variety of books from this era, I am always attracted to the lives of The Lost Generation. There is always something so very fragile about them. The decadence of their party lifestyle was always against a backdrop of a deep sadness and, what appeared to be, a general unhappiness.

Naomi Wood has taken factual information and built this incredible story around these four very different women who all had one thing in common, their love for a great man, a man who was never truly available for them to love.

Mrs Hemingway spans the years between 1926 and 1961 as we get an insight into the lives of Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gellhorn and Mary Welsh.

It’s a very heartbreaking tale in many ways as we witness the demise of a man who was so loved by many but was always hungry for more. Ernest Hemingway’s life will continue to fascinate. There is something enigmatic about his personality that, even now so many years later, draws people in.

I loved Mrs Hemingway, as I knew I would, and it inspired me immediately to purchase For Whom the Bell Tolls, the novel Ernest Hemingway dedicated to Martha Gellhorn.

My fascination with The Lost Generation continues….

Purchase Link ~ Mrs Hemingway 

Bio:

Naomi Wood was born in 1983 and lives in London. She studied at Cambridge and at UEA for her MA in Creative Writing. Originally from York, she has gone on to live in Hong Kong, Paris and Washington DC. 

She is the author of The Godless Boys and Mrs Hemingway and is currently working on a third novel due for release in 2019.

Website ~ https://naomiwood.com/

Twitter ~ @NaomiWoodBooks