The Paris Wife

A NOTE ON SOURCES

Although Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway, and other people who actually lived appear in this book as fictional characters, it was important for me to render the particulars of their lives as accurately as possible, and to follow the very well documented historical record. The true story of the Hemingways’ marriage is so dramatic and compelling, and has been so beautifully treated by Ernest Hemingway himself in A Moveable Feast, that my intention became to push deeper into the emotional lives of the characters and bring new insight to historical events, while staying faithful to the facts. Along the way, I’ve been very grateful for a number of sources, including Hadley: The First Mrs. Hemingway by Alice Hunt Sokoloff, Hadley by Gioia Diliberto, The Hemingway Women by Bernice Kert, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story and Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917-1961 by Carlos Baker, Hemingway: The Paris Years and Hemingway: The American Homecoming by Michael Reynolds, and The True Gen by Denis Brian. Enormously useful to my understanding of Paris in the twenties and other details of place and time were The Crazy Years by William Wiser, Paris Was Yesterday by Janet Flanner, Living Well Is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins, Zelda by Nancy Milford, The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell, and Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein. Susan Wrynn and Sam Smallidge of the Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library in Boston were very helpful as I navigated a wealth of materials, including correspondence between Hadley Richardson and Ernest Hemingway, as well as Hemingway’s writings in manuscript form. Finally I’m indebted to many of Ernest Hemingway’s works in addition to A Moveable Feast, mostly notably In Our Time, The Sun Also Rises, The Garden of Eden, Death in the Afternoon, and The Complete Short Stories.