Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood

Book Review by Alice Sinclair | 03 Mar 2014
Book title: Mrs Hemingway
Author: Naomi Wood

Ernest Hemingway was a great man: a writer, a lover, a fighter. But this novel is about the women who normally comprise his subplot – the wives. One after the other, each Mrs Hemingway recalls the chapters of Ernest’s life. Just as we grow into the skin of one woman, their marriage is fractured by the entry of another. Our dislike for this intruder is turned on its head when her own recollection unfolds and we fall for her, too.

The fractured sense of time – each account weaves in and out of the beginning and end of the marriages – creates an inevitability. Their stories could not have unfolded any other way. All that is happening has already happened. Hemingway may be the sun these women orbit, but he is not the focal point of the novel. The gaps left in his story are unimportant; we follow Hadley, Fife, Martha and Mary. The women that Hemingway married were as remarkable as he was, and Wood skilfully unravels the love these luminous, wonderful women had for such a difficult man. We understand why they fall for him, and sympathise, if not agree, with why they stay. [Alice Sinclair]

Out now, published by Picador, RRP £12.99