In Mrs Hemingway, Naomi Wood paints a portrait of the four women who Hemingway married during his lifetime, although they were far from the only four women he had relationships with. Taking in Chicago in 1920, through a hazy, hot summer in the south of France in 1926, and visiting a number of locations and times before heading to autumn in Idaho in 1961, we meet fictionalised (although very well researched and based on reality) versions of Hadley, Fife, Martha and Mary before they know Hemingway, as they turn from lovers to wives, and as Ernest leaves them.
Wood's magic in Mrs Hemingway involves turning Fife, Martha and Mary - all of whom have affairs with Hemingway while he is married - into likeable characters. And Wood casts a further spell by making all four women sympathetic instead of pitiable. As a reader, I could so easily have spent the entire time I was reading wanting to shake all the women for being utterly stupid. Instead, thanks to Wood, I didn't think any of them were silly - they all deeply love Hemingway, in spite of clearly being able to see his faults. Each of them knows what they're getting when they get involved with him. Even Hadley, the first Mrs Hemingway, can see how her husband dazzles people.
