Our book club read Paris Wife and had a lengthy discussion about Ernest Hemingway. This book is about when he is married to Pauline (wife #2) in Key West during the 1930's and their housekeeper.

Hemingways Girl was a wonderful story following our Book Clubs reading of The Paris Wife. Although The Paris Wife was very good, it showed a different side of Ernest Hemingway with his first wife, Haddie, and his younger years in Paris, Hemingway\'s Girl shows and older Hemingway with his second wife and his relationship with his young, stong, intriguing housekeeper, Mariella. The characters and storyline of Hemingway\'s Girl set in Key West provide an fascinating story of love, strength, admiration, with a hurricane as a climax. I liked the other characters of this story in addition to gaining an insight into a complex writer of our time. Our book club had the added benefit of having the author, Ericka Robuck, join us for our meeting. It was a great discussion and good to hear how someone goes about writing and reseaching a book.

3.5***

In 1961, Mariella, a widow living on Key West with her 25-year-old son, is devastated by the news that Ernest Hemingway has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Her memories of Papa take the reader back to the summer of 1935, when she was just 19 years old and went to work in the Hemingway household as a housekeeper. Soon she is witness to the drama of Hemingway’s marriage to second wife Pauline, and trying to sort out her own attraction to Papa in contrast to Gavin, the handsome WWI veteran who is working on a government project to build a road to the keys.

Robuck does a good job of setting the scene of Depression-era Key West. Mariella, her family and neighbors struggle to feed and clothe themselves, dependent on rich tourists who frequently display racist attitudes towards “the natives.” The story also exposes the very real problems of returning veterans who witnessed horrific bloodshed at the Argonne, received little or no help for their “shell shock” (i.e. PTSD) and frequently turned to alcohol to numb their feelings of guilt and betrayal. The major crisis and turning point in the story is the Labor Day hurricane that devastated the keys and killed hundreds of veterans (and their families). They had been sent by the U.S. government to work on the road to connect the keys to the mainland, living in shanty towns or camps on low-lying islands. Robuck includes an actual essay by Hemingway, titled “Who Murdered the Vets?” which outlines the aftermath of the storm.

I liked that Robuck chose to tell the story chiefly from Mariella’s viewpoint, which gives the reader a little relief from Hemingway’s bigger-than-life persona. But Papa is still vibrant and alive on these pages.
It reminds me a little of the recent movie “My Week With Marilyn” – it is young Colin’s story, but all eyes are on Marilyn Monroe.

All told, this is enjoyable historical fiction, and I would read another novel by Robuck.