Pubblicato in Italia con il titolo Amore e rovina. La storia d’amore tra uno dei grandi della letteratura Americana, Ernest Hemingway, e Martha Gellhorn, una delle più famose giornaliste americane, una giornalista che non aveva paura di rischiare la vita o rinunciare all’amore per raccontare le atrocità della guerra.
Ernest Hemingway is one of my favorite authors. I enjoy reading his novels and I love his writing style. Even though I never read any of his biographies, I know quite a bit about his life. I know that he had houses in Cuba, in Key West, he liked to fish, and he killed himself (although his wife said it was an accident while cleaning his gun). I know that he had four wives who he all met while he was still married with the previous one. My favorite of his wives his Martha Gellhorn. She was his third wife, but that’s not only what she was famous for because she was also a great journalist. Her independence and determination is what makes her my favourite.
Paula McLain has been writing novels based on Hemingway’s marriages for a while, but I got interested when I found out that she was publishing the one about Martha Gellhorn. The book is told mostly from Martha’s point of view and it focuses only on the years during her marriage with Hemingway. It starts with a brief summary of the events that led her and her family to take an holiday to Key West where she met the author and it ends with their divorce. In the middle, we see Martha fall in love with a married man much older than her, with an ego that filled every room that he entered, but we also see Martha struggling for her independence, finding a way to go to Europe and report about World War II (she was the only woman to witness the Normand landings).
The novel is beautifully written and engaging and captivating. Even if you are not interested in Ernest Hemingway and his life but you enjoy a good historical novel, you should read it because it will keep you glued to the page.
