Book Review : The Paris Husband : How It Really Was Between Ernest and Hadley Hemingway
ning with “ If Hemingway ’ s fiction is any guide ...” Well is it , or isn ’ t it ? The biographer wants to bootleg fiction into a factual account while providing an escape clause . I regret to say this is a very typical of the sleight-of-hand biographers practice . This first instance of biographical fiction introduces a virus that disables the narrative at key points . Fiction is tempting because it allows the biographer to link up a series of events that otherwise remain discrete and intractable . What do Marjorie Bump , Irene Goldstein , and Grace Quinlan�the three women Hemingway courts�have to do with one another ? Do they really show that Hemingway would never give too much of himself again ? That they don ’ t really fit together�or at least don ’ t in Donaldson ’ s botched narrative�is apparent in his inability to make a transition from one woman to another . So after introducing all three women , he gives each a paragraph or so , beginning one subsequent paragraph : “ Irene Goldstein was another of Ernest ’ s interests .” This is typical of certain sentences that just go nowhere in this book . We already know she is one of his “ interests ” and so ?
Hemingway kept his own reactions to himself , although he revealed something to Hadley in a letter that has not survived . When evidence is lacking , Donaldson resorts to inference� not a bad thing , except when it becomes too insistent : “ it ’ s possible to construe what he must have said from Hadley ’ s answer .” I don ’ t object to construe but to “ must have said .” This phrase , like “ must have been ” or “ must have felt ” compromises the work of many biographers , even the Rushmore ones . The trouble with “ must have ” is that once employed all other possibilities are swept off the page . Maybe Hadley was a good reader of Hemingway ’ s letters and we can trust her and happily construe . But maybe not . Maybe what Hemingway wrote is open to other interpretations . The point is we don ’ t know and that is really what the biographer is saying
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