Paula McLain

"I want to believe that it is sometimes our greatest and most difficult pain that leads us to our lives' purpose."

"... '. At the end of his , Hemingway writes of , “I wished I had died before I loved anyone but her.” That line, and his portrayal of their marriage in his memoir—so poignant and steeped in regret—inspired me to first to read biographies of her, and then to write a novel, ', which tells the whole of their wildly romantic and ultimately tragic love story from her point of view. All the biographers agree that of Hemingway’s four wives and numerous conquests, Hadley’s the one who is changed for the better by knowing him. She blooms. When the two meet in 1920, Hadley’s a quiet, twenty-eight-year-old near-spinster. Her life has been difficult, strained by illness and death, and she’s all but given up on love and happiness. Ernest bowls her over with his aliveness and intensity. Though she can’t help but be anxious about his attractiveness to others, she takes the risk."

"Don’t try to impose your will on a book before you know what it is—or what it needs. Writing is a kind of trust exercise: you do the work, you show up again and again, and over time the story begins to meet you. It’s like standing at the edge of a clearing, palm open, trying to lure a wild animal out of the woods. Little by little, it creeps closer. And listen to your obsessions. Whatever you can’t stop thinking about—that’s your compass."