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A review by jacki_f
Mrs. Hemingway by Naomi Wood
4.0
Gosh, I enjoyed this. It's the story of the four women who were married to Ernest Hemingway and it focuses on the perspective of each in turn, so that sometimes you revisit past wives from the perspective of the new one. Ernest himself is a supporting player, something of an enigma viewed through the lens of four women who all became disenchanted with him in different ways. The book starts in 1926 and concludes in 1961, spanning a number of exotic destinations: Cuba, Key West, Paris, the south of France, all of which are brought to life in all their fragrant and dazzling splendour.
Occasionally I found myself tiring of reading about yet another miserable woman whose marriage is falling apart, but Naomi Wood's writing is so good that I would find myself burrowing into her words again and relishing her inventive turns of phrase. In the afterword she points us to a variety of online sources to view photographs of the wives, photographs of the homes they shared and even in one instance to hear their voices.
Occasionally I found myself tiring of reading about yet another miserable woman whose marriage is falling apart, but Naomi Wood's writing is so good that I would find myself burrowing into her words again and relishing her inventive turns of phrase. In the afterword she points us to a variety of online sources to view photographs of the wives, photographs of the homes they shared and even in one instance to hear their voices.