Ernest Hemingway was just twenty years old when he met and fell in love with Hadley Richardson, a bright, kind-hearted woman from St. Louis who was eight years his senior. Their subsequent marriage (Hemingway's first of four) forms the heart of this insightful novel, narrated by Hadley and set primarily in the shabby-chic artists' arrondissements of post-World War I Paris. There, the Hemingways hobnob with Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Ernest is in his literary element, gathering the material that will eventually become his breakout novel, The Sun Also Rises. But for Hadley, the life of a writer's wife is anything but glamorous. Deeply in love, she must grapple with the harsh realities of poverty, alcohol abuse, and Ernest's perpetually wandering eye. Frank and absorbing, The Paris Wife offers an intimate acquaintance with one of America's greatest writers, lifting the curtain of history to reveal the tragic casualties of literary genius.