The Paris Wife

All summer, Ernest writes bullfighting sketches and corrects proofs for Three Stories and Ten Poems. In the fall, they move to Toronto, and Ernest learns he will report to a difficult editor, Harry Hindmarsh, at the Toronto Star. Hindmarsh sends him on out-of-town assignments despite Hadley’s pregnancy. A new friend, Helen Clark, helps Hadley find an apartment.

On October 9, Hadley goes into labor. After a hard night, she delivers a son. Ernest is away on assignment and misses the birth, arriving the next morning. They name the baby John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway.

Because Ernest didn’t file his story before going to Hadley’s hospital bedside, Hindmarsh punishes him by transferring him to the weekly edition. Through the winter, the family struggles with money. Ernest feels stifled by miserable assignments. Copies of his book arrive but receive no reviews, and his mood darkens. He calls the move a mistake, and Hadley agrees they must return to Paris.

To fund the trip, Ernest files a final series for the paper and resigns. In January 1924, Hadley, Ernest, and their infant—now nicknamed Bumby—board a ship. As it pulls away, Hadley accepts their unconventional life.

Back in Paris, they visit Gertrude Stein and then rent a larger apartment above a sawmill. Ernest writes in cafés each morning. Ezra Pound secures him an unpaid post at the Transatlantic Review under editor Ford Madox Ford. Hadley meets Ford and his partner, Stella Bowen, a painter. Hadley and Stella bond over motherhood.

At one of Ford’s teas, Hadley meets writer Harold Loeb and his girlfriend, Kitty Cannell. Later, Ernest criticizes Hadley for being easily influenced by Kitty, sparking a rare argument.

Hadley continues seeing Kitty despite Ernest’s disapproval. She struggles with illness in the damp apartment, as does Bumby, and she dreams of having a piano, which she has played since childhood. Meanwhile, Ernest’s reputation grows. At a café, Hadley sees him with Lady Duff Twysden and becomes jealous. She also meets the writer Don Stewart, who becomes a friend. Kitty arrives distraught, confessing that Harold is leaving her.

Later, Ernest stays out with Duff and sends Hadley home alone. When he returns, he insists they take a long vacation to regain their footing, and she agrees.

The family moves to Schruns, Austria, for the winter of 1924-25. They ski and spend quiet evenings, and Hadley becomes a confident skier, surprising herself by how much she loves the physical activity. Ernest struggles with his writing until he learns his parents returned his book, enclosing a letter calling it “profane,” and that Harold Loeb’s novel has been accepted by Boni and Liveright.

Ernest mails his own collection, In Our Time, to the same publisher. After a ski tour, they return to the hotel and find two telegrams confirming the acceptance of his manuscript. Hadley senses they will never again be this happy or unknown.

In spring 1925, they return to Paris. Ernest anchors the Montparnasse café scene and spends more time with Duff Twysden. Hadley notices old alliances, including with Gertrude Stein, cooling. At a tea, Hadley meets two sisters, Pauline and Jinny Pfeiffer. Pauline befriends Hadley and encourages her music.

At a café, F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces himself and sends them a copy of The Great Gatsby. Although Ernest puts it unread onto a shelf, Hadley reads it and finds it compelling. She tells Ernest to read it, and after he is finished, he says it is a masterpiece. A chaotic dinner with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald reveals their marital strain. Ernest considers borrowing money for their summer trip to Pamplona.

The Hemingways arrive in Pamplona in July 1925 with Harold Loeb, Duff Twysden, Pat Guthrie (Duff’s fiancée), Don Stewart, and Bill Smith. A flashback to a recent, failed fishing trip foreshadows the tension. Harold and Duff are having an affair, which enrages Ernest and Pat.

At lunch, the rivalries escalate. Hadley leaves with Don, who walks her back to the hotel. He kisses her briefly, and she gently rebuffs him. Alone in her room, she feels isolated from the group’s conflicts.

Bill tells Hadley about a near-fight between Ernest and Harold. Harold’s good performance in an amateur bullfight angers Ernest. At the next corrida, the matador Cayetano Ordóñez sees Hadley applauding in the crowd and sends her the bull’s ear as a tribute. Soon after, Duff and Harold disappear together. Hadley and Ernest leave for Madrid and then Valencia.

They continue going to bullfights, and the intensity of the trip sparks Ernest to begin a novel about Pamplona. Hadley reads his notebooks and recognizes Duff’s mannerisms in the heroine, realizing she has been written out of their story. She returns to Paris; he stays in Spain and writes furiously.

While Ernest finishes the novel, Hadley keeps company with Kitty and Pauline. Ernest returns to Paris with a complete first draft. At a dinner, he tells Kitty she is not in the book. When Hadley reads the manuscript, she realizes that she isn’t in it, either, and feels the sting of being left out but praises the work.

Pauline visits often and forges a bond with Ernest. In Our Time appears to acclaim. Ernest then writes The Torrents of Spring, a satire of Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter that ends his friendships with Anderson and Gertrude Stein. The Hemingways invite Pauline to visit them in Schruns. They also begin seeing a wealthy circle, including Gerald and Sara Murphy and Archibald and Ada MacLeish.

Pauline arrives in Schruns and becomes Hadley’s constant companion. Ernest shows her The Torrents of Spring, and she praises it, unlike everyone else, who have all told him not to publish it. He sends the book to Boni and Liveright, who reject it, freeing him from his contract.

Pauline and Ernest grow closer. She backs his plan to leave his publisher and go to New York to meet with Scribner’s. Hadley argues against it, feeling her influence wane. When Ernest asks if she is on his side, she recommits to him.

Ernest heads to New York. While he is gone, at Pauline’s urging, Hadley schedules a piano concert in Paris. Ernest writes that Maxwell Perkins at Scribner’s has taken his books with a large advance. He returns after five weeks.

Soon after, an avalanche kills nine skiers nearby. Their instructor recounts the disaster at the hotel. John Dos Passos and the Murphys visit, and Gerald Murphy starts calling Ernest “Papa.” Ernest vents to Hadley in private about their wealthy friends, sparking a brief argument.