‘Mrs. Hemingway’: A beautiful tale of Hemingway’s many wives

'Mrs. Hemingway,” Naomi Wood's delicious, meticulously-researched account of Hemingway's life and loves, begins in the 1920s when the 21-year-old writer meets a shy, Midwestern girl named Hadley Richardson. The two marry and live happily in Paris, reveling in Hemingway's early success and the active Paris social scene - that is until Hadley discovers Hemingway has fallen for her best friend, Fife, a Vogue reporter and socialite who would eventually become the second Mrs. Hemingway.

But Fife will not be his last wife. Hemingway will marry twice more before his death in 1961: two younger, strong-headed journalists who keep up with Hemingway through two wars, a number of emotional battles, and the author's now infamous struggle with alcohol.

Told in a beautiful, spare style clearly influenced by her subject, Wood spins the tale of Hemingway's wives with the panache of a literary author and the detailing of a gossip columnist. As a result, 'Mrs. Hemingway” is as addictive as it is heartbreaking.

The sentences are gorgeous: 'They sit there, all three, as if waiting for something to happen,” and the dialogue, though fictitious, seems to come straight from a battered old tape recording of Hemingway's private moments. When fighting with his third wife, war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, Wood reveals a Hemingway far from the bravado of his public life: 'Are you my wife anymore, Rabbit?” he says. When she says no, he replies plaintively: 'But I want you to be.”

While the adventures of Hemingway and his wives are well-told tales, 'Mrs. Hemingway” moves beyond the traditional narratives to reveal a Hemingway as lonesome and loving as he is brash and bullish, and depicts each wife with the candor - and respect - she deserves.