Paula McLain

"Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When unspeakable tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino. She spent summers there as a child with her beloved grandparents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her to heal. Yet the day she arrives, she learns a local teenage girl has gone missing. Anna is in no condition to become involved with the search--until a childhood friend, now the village sheriff, pleads for her help"--

When the Stars Go Dark

Follows the life of Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, as she navigates 1920s Paris.

Book Club in a Bag

The Paris Wife

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK * "A total departure for the author of The Paris Wife, McLain's emotionally intense and exceptionally well-written thriller entwines its fictional crime with real cases."--People (Book of the Week) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MARIE CLAIRE * "The kind of heart-pounding conclusion that thriller fans crave . . . In the end, a book full of darkness lands with a message of hope."--The New York Times Book Review "This mystery will keep you guessing, and stay with you long after you finish. Dive in."--Daily Skimm Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna's childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives--and our faith in one another.

A Mind of Her Own

In 1937, courageous and independent Martha Gellhorn travels to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, and finds herself drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in devastating conflict. She also finds herself unexpectedly - and uncontrollably - falling in love with Ernest Hemingway, a man already on his way to being a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China, and especially Cuba, where Martha and Hemingway made their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite. But when Hemingway publishes the biggest literary success of his career, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice: surrender to the suffocating demands of a domestic lifestyle, or risk losing her husband by forging her way as her own woman and writer. It is a dilemma that will force her to break his heart, and her own. Based on a true story Martha Gellhorn was one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century FOR WHOM THE BELLS TOLLS was dedicated to Martha, and inspired by the time they were together in Spain. It was Hemingway's most successful book to date, it sold half a million copies within months, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and triumphantly reestablished his literary reputation

Love and Ruin

A RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK 'Thrilling...sun-soaked, gin-fuelled...A totally absorbing and compelling read.' Richard & Judy The author of The Paris Wife takes us to the heart of another true story: set in 1920s colonial Kenya, Circling the Sun is about an unforgettable woman who lives by nobody's rules but her own. She was a daughter of Edwardian England, transplanted to Kenya as a young girl by parents who dreamed of life on an African farm. But by the time Beryl Markham was sixteen, that dream had fallen apart. Catapulted into a disastrous marriage, she emerged from its wreckage with one idea: to take charge of her own destiny. Circling the Sun takes us from the brittle glamour of the 1920s Happy Valley set, fuelled by gin and adultery, to the loneliness of life as a scandalous divorcee; from the spectacular beauty of the Kenyan landscape to the manicured lawns of Nairobi's Muthaiga Club. Dazzlingly beautiful, brave, passionate and reckless, Beryl is an unforgettable heroine, whose tragic loss in love compels her to pursue her own dream - of flight, and freedom.

Circling the Sun

NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife comes an atmospheric novel of intertwined fate and heart-wrenching suspense: A detective hiding away from the world. A series of disappearances that reach into her past. Can solving them help her heal? Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna's childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives--and our faith in one another.

A compelling account of growing up as a foster child describes how she and her two sisters were abandoned by their parents, her next fourteen years in a series of temporary homes, and the impact of the continual dislocations, confusions, and sometimes pleasures of her unrooted life. 25,000 first printing.

Growing Up in Other People's Houses : a Memoir

Like Family

Mesmerized by her seemingly sophisticated older cousin Fawn, who has been sent to live with Jamie's family after a sex scandal involving a teacher, Jamie agrees to a makeover in order to win Fawn's approval but finds herself torn between her sexually awakened new self and the girl she used to be. 30,000 first printing.

A Novel

A Ticket to Ride

Poetry. "STUMBLE, GORGEOUS offers her most powerful and accomplished writing to date: the music sings metrically and in a range of sounds and voices; the syntax unfolds pleasure and difficulty in uneven doses and often surprises in its jangling turns"--Ira Sadoff.

Stumble, Gorgeous

Chicago 1920: Hadley Richardson hat die Liebe und das Glück bereits aufgegeben, als sie Ernest Hemingway trifft und sofort von seinem guten Aussehen, seiner Gefühlstiefe und seiner Kunst, mit Worten zu verführen, angezogen wird. Die beiden heiraten und gehen nach Paris, wo sie Teil einer schillernden Gruppe Amerikaner werden, unter ihnen Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound und die Fitzgeralds. Doch im Paris der goldenen 20er - fiebrig, glamourös, verwegen - lassen sich Familie und Treue kaum aufrechterhalten. Während Hadley, inzwischen Mutter, mit Eifersucht und Selbstzweifeln ringt und Ernests literarische Arbeit allmählich Früchte trägt, wird das Paar mit einer Enttäuschung konfrontiert, die das Ende all dessen bedeutet, was es gemeinsam erträumt hatte. Paula McLain, geboren 1965, studierte an der University of Michigan Kreatives Schreiben und lebte in den Künstlerkolonie Yaddo und MacDowell. Sie veröffentlichte bislang zwei Gedichtsammlungen, ein autobiographisches Werk sowie einen Roman. Paula McLain lebt mit ihrer Familie in Cleveland.

Roman

Madame Hemingway

Something That Cannot Die

An instant national bestseller, this stunningly evocative, beautifully rendered story told in the voice of Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, has the same power and historical richness that made Loving Frank a bestseller. No twentieth-century American writer has captured the popular imagination as much as Ernest Hemingway. This novel tells his story from a unique point of view - that of his first wife, Hadley. Through her eyes and voice, we experience Paris of the Lost Generation and meet fascinating characters such as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Gerald and Sara Murphy. The city and its inhabitants provide a vivid backdrop to this engrossing and wrenching story of love and betrayal that is made all the more poignant knowing that, in the end, Hemingway would write of his first wife, "I wish I had died before I loved anyone but her."

Välskriven berättelse om kärlek, äktenskap, ärelystnad och svek. Hadley är 29 när hon möter den åtta år yngre Ernest Hemingway hos en vän i Chicago. Det är kärlek vid första ögonkastet för dem båda, och efter bara några månader gifter de sig. Ernest är fast besluten att lyckas som författare, och tillsammans bestämmer de sig för att lämna USA. De hamnar mitt i det turbulenta konstnärslivet i 1920-talets Paris – de bor trångt och fattigt, men umgås med Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound och makarna Fitzgerald; med miljonärer, konstnärer och bohemer. Långsamt börjar Ernest vinna erkännande, samtidigt som det förut så lyckliga äktenskapet får sina första sprickor. Det är en omvälvande tid där allt det gamla ifrågasätts, där litteraturen, konsten och kärleken söker nya former. Det är en frihet som kan vara svår att leva med. Åren i Paris är en fantastisk berättelse om en stor och smärtsam kärlek mellan två oförglömliga personer. Vi får följa Hadley som kämpar för att hålla fast vid sin lycka och vid det liv hon hoppats på, medan Ernests främsta strävan bara gäller honom själv och hans skrivande. Paula McLain tar oss innanför huden på en av världslitteraturens giganter och den kvinna som gick från att vara hans jämlike till att leva i hans skugga. Översättare: Isa Lybeck, Omslagsformgivare: Form Jojo

Åren i Paris

Chicago, octobre 1920. Hadley Richardson a 28 ans et débarque du Missouri lorsqu’elle fait la connaissance d’un jeune homme de 20 ans, revenu blessé de la Grande Guerre, Ernest Hemingway. Après un mariage éclair, ils embarquent pour la France et se retrouvent à Paris au cœur d’une « génération perdue » d’écrivains anglo-saxons expatriés – Gertrud Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Scott Fitzgerald... Rive gauche, entre l’alcool et la cocaïne, la guerre des ego, les couples qui se font et se défont et la beauté des femmes, Ernest travaille à son premier roman : Le soleil se lève aussi, qui lui apportera consécration et argent. Mais à quel prix ? Hadley saura-t-elle répondre aux exigences et aux excès de son écrivain de mari ? Pourra-t-elle rester sa muse, sa complice, son épouse ? Cette Madame Hemingway emporte le lecteur, avec et malgré elle, dans le sillage d’un géant des lettres et le tourbillon d’une époque. Eglantine Gabaix-Hialé, La Vie.

Chicago 1920: Hadley Richardson hat die Liebe und das Glück bereits aufgegeben, als sie Ernest Hemingway trifft und sofort von seinem guten Aussehen, seiner Gefühlstiefe und seiner Kunst, mit Worten zu verführen, angezogen wird. Die beiden heiraten und gehen nach Paris, wo sie Teil einer schillernden Gruppe Amerikaner werden, unter ihnen Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound und die Fitzgeralds. Doch im Paris der goldenen 20er – fiebrig, glamourös, verwegen – lassen sich Familie und Treue kaum aufrechterhalten. Während Hadley, inzwischen Mutter, mit Eifersucht und Selbstzweifeln ringt und Ernests literarische Arbeit allmählich Früchte trägt, wird das Paar mit einer Enttäuschung konfrontiert, die das Ende all dessen bedeutet, was es gemeinsam erträumt hatte...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful novel of the stormy marriage between Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, a fiercely independent woman who became one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century—from the author of The Paris Wife and the new novel When the Stars Go Dark, available now! “Romance, infidelity, war—Paula McLain’s powerhouse novel has it all.”—Glamour NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • New York Public Library • Bloomberg • Real Simple In 1937, twenty-eight-year-old Martha Gellhorn travels alone to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and becomes drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in the devastating conflict. It’s her chance to prove herself a worthy journalist in a field dominated by men. There she also finds herself unexpectedly—and unwillingly—falling in love with Ernest Hemingway, a man on his way to becoming a legend. On the eve of World War II, and set against the turbulent backdrops of Madrid and Cuba, Martha and Ernest’s relationship and careers ignite. But when Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, For Whom the Bell Tolls, they are no longer equals, and Martha must forge a path as her own woman and writer. Heralded by Ann Patchett as “the new star of historical fiction,” Paula McLain brings Gellhorn’s story richly to life and captures her as a heroine for the ages: a woman who will risk absolutely everything to find her own voice.

An astonishing memoir that "demonstrates the true meaning of family" from the author of The Paris Wife and When the Stars Go Dark, detailing the years Paula McLain and her two sisters spent as foster children after being abandoned by both parents in California in the early 1970s and (Chicago Tribune). As wards of the State, the sisters spent the next 14 years moving from foster home to foster home. The dislocations, confusions, and odd pleasures of an unrooted life form the basis of one of the most compelling memoirs in recent years -- a book the tradition of Jo Ann Beard's The Boys of My Youth and Mary Karr's The Liar's Club. McLain's beautiful writing and limber voice capture the intense loneliness, sadness, and determination of a young girl both on her own and responsible, with her siblings, for staying together as a family.

Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK • “A total departure for the author of The Paris Wife, McLain’s emotionally intense and exceptionally well-written thriller entwines its fictional crime with real cases.”—People (Book of the Week) “The kind of heart-pounding conclusion that thriller fans crave . . . In the end, a book full of darkness lands with a message of hope.”—The New York Times Book Review “This mystery will keep you guessing, and stay with you long after you finish. Dive in.”—Daily Skimm Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna’s childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives—and our faith in one another.

Less of Her is informed by a knowledge of irredeemable loss. While its poems record diminishment and imminent disappearances, they strike notes of survival and triumph, mining despair and longing for "small winnings." In this collection of female voices, grief and the sadnesses of desire are catalysts, but love consoles, redeems, "make[s] everything sing." These humane and ageless poems demand our attention.

Paula McLain

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