A stunning portrait of the complicated woman who becomes Ernest Hemingway's fourth wife, tracing her adventures before she meets Ernest, exploring the tumultuous years of their marriage, and evoking her merrywidowhood as she shapes Hemingway's literary legacy.
Mary Welsh, a celebrated wartime journalist during the London Blitz and the liberation of Paris, meets Ernest Hemingway in May 1944. He becomes so infatuated with Mary that he asks her to marry him the third time they meet—although they are married to other people. Eventually, she succumbs to Ernest's campaign, and in the last days of the war joined him at his estate in Cuba.
Through Mary's eyes, we see Ernest Hemingway in a fresh light. Their turbulent marriage survives his cruelty and abuse, perhaps because of their sexual compatibility and her essential contribution to his writing. She reads and types his work each day—and m
