The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Highly recommended to learn about Ernest Hemingway's early years before anyone knew or cared of his existence. Written as a novel with some factual content.

Previous to this the only thing I recalled about his personal side was that he was a hard drinker and womanizer. He did have a different side and it was odd to learn that he really wanted to be accepted by his family and others but could not accept charity or anything that he "interpreted" as charity. His wife truly loved him and chose to take a backseat to support his career goals at the expense of her early opportunity as an accomplished artist in her own right as a pianist. There are those who be today’s standards would have considered her a doormat. 

They lived in poor conditions, with minimal amounts of money but somehow made it work on an international level. His first set of manuscripts were lost/stolen and it may have actually been a blessing in disguise since he had to recreate himself as a writer and we have all benefited from what may have been the change needed for that has created hours of reading pleasure for all of us.

He was forever tormented by his experiences during war times (WWI) and he was seriously wounded. He fell in love with a nurse but she chose to marry someone else.  All three of these events appear to be connected and coupled with the less than nurturing home environment of his youth may have contributed to his somewhat driven nature. His mother appeared overbearing and his father seemed somehow distant, in my opinion. 

Throughout the book I got the impression that Hemingway felt that he did not deserve to be loved by the way he became so verbally brutal towards the same people who had initially pushed for his success that he had initially considered friends.  He sometimes treated a kindness or generosity as charity which he vehemently resented and refused.

Depression seems to have run in his family if the number of suicides is any measure which included his father, brother, sister and even his granddaughter, the model and actress Margaux Hemingway.  With what we know about depression today and had we known it then, who can know what other great works would have been written for our enjoyment. 

Having read this book, I have a better appreciation for his literary greatness and the hard road driven to our bookshelves.

He lived life on his own terms and died the same way, both in what could be termed desperation.  

On a scale from 1 to 10, from me it gets an 8.