Everyone I love is dead now. There's no one left to protect. No one left to lie for but me. People have so closely followed the most intricate details of the fake story of my life. But it's not...I don't...I want them to know the real story. The real me.The narrator of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is Monique Grant – a thirty-five-year-old low level features writer for lifestyle magazine Vivant – and with her marriage faltering, her career stalling, and her only family (her Mom) on the other side of the country, Monique is in need of a breakthrough. And one comes, in the form of an offer for an exclusive interview with Evelyn Hugo – once the biggest movie star on the planet and now an elegant seventy-nine-year-old Manhattan recluse – and while Monique doesn't understand why she was chosen – by name – for this honour, her editors reluctantly agree to send her in for the scoop. As Evelyn and Monique begin talking, it becomes clear that the actress is offering her life story – including all the juicy details of her scandalous seven marriages – and while Monique protests that she still doesn't understand why she was chosen for the job, Evelyn explains that all of the writer's questions will be answered in time; hinting darkly that Monique won't like everything she hears. While author Taylor Jenkins Reid makes some effort to layer in a few contemporary themes, this book isn't really any more literary than the Hollywood tell-all that it pretends to be – call it romantic chick-lit or a mindless beach read, this is a fast and ultimately lightweight offering. It would make a fine movie, but probably one I wouldn't be interested in watching.
Do you understand what I'm telling you? When you're given an opportunity to change your life, be ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen. The world doesn't give things, you take things. If you learn one thing from me, it should probably be that.Born in Hell's Kitchen to Cuban immigrant parents, Evelyn Elena Herrera knew by the time she was fourteen – with her mother dead and her father an abusive drunk – that she needed to escape the poverty and the danger of her life. With the face and body of a goddess, Evelyn was able to lure a neighbour into marrying her just before he left for a job in lighting Hollywood movies; Evelyn knew that if she just made it to LA, she'd be put in the pictures; and it happened just that easily for her. As this early part of the book is set in the 50's, Evelyn is caught up in the studio system – she's willing to sleep with executives, her name and look is changed, she is told to quietly divorce her husband and start being seen around town with bachelor movie stars – and with frequent excerpts from gossip rags, Reid does a good job of capturing the time and place. As the years (and marriages) go by, Evelyn evolves from wanting her big break, to wanting to be the biggest box office draw, to wanting Oscars and respect – and through it all, while she also craves love and intimacy, Evelyn will always put her career first; she warns Monique early that she hasn't been a good person, and her stories prove that statement's truth.
You have to be willing to deny your heritage, to commodify your body, to lie to good people, to sacrifice who you love in the name of what people will think, and to choose the false version of yourself time and time again, until you forget who you started out as or why you started doing it to begin with.Much of this book is about the lies that a Hollywood career forced on Evelyn – sham marriages, false scoops fed to the gossip magazines in order to shape the official narrative, the fake smiles hiding a furious heart – and while the biggest lie is the secret love affair that plays out behind the façade, I was never cheering for it: they seemed fairly ill-suited to me; too quick to misunderstand one another; too easy to break up; as though Romeo kept walking out on Juliet – for five or ten years at a shot – every time she acted in the way that first attracted him to her; as though Romeo only returned every time he remembered how much he loved her body. Besides, I find it pretty hard to feel sorry for the rich and famous: Evelyn could have walked away at any time after she made her multi-millions; she could have had it all.
It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.This theme of doubling plays out with a heavy hand – characters might be bisexual, biracial, bicoastal – and by the end of her story, Monique both loves and hates Evelyn; indeed, Evelyn's early appeal in Hollywood had been her innocent yet alluring look; her bronze skin and platinum hair that shouldn't work but does; from her repressed Latina heritage to her manufactured marriages, everything about Evelyn is doubled and false. There's also a quasi-feminist theme – Evelyn urges Monique to “grab life by the balls” like she has – but I don't know if Evelyn makes such a good role model: she stayed with a husband who beat her because he was good for her career and great in bed; once, when a man was trying to bed her, she kept saying “no” while thinking “maybe” and musing on how this teasing was the sexiest experience of all; she always used her body as currency and encouraged men to underestimate her mind in order to get what she wanted. So much focussed on what people are wearing, how slim everyone is, and while that might make sense for Hollywood, the book opens with Monique noting that the stress of her husband leaving caused her to shed a few pounds – which gives her the confidence required to first meet with Evelyn: this is not a feminist message. There is also a story arc about the evolution of gay rights over the years – from the real danger of being arrested, committed, or killed if one was outed in the 50's, to helplessly watching the Stonewall Riots in 1969, to ruefully acknowledging Rock Hudson's treatment in the 80's – but there's no mention made of today's improved situation. Characters are routinely forced to choose between love and family, between fulfillment and duty – as though these are always separate – and if there's one thing that Monique learns from Evelyn, it's that if your marriage isn't satisfying, it's not a failing to walk away. None of this was interesting to me.
And when it is finally revealed at the end just why it was that Evelyn insisted on giving her life story to Monique, well, if the reasons are a surprise to you, you weren't paying attention. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo works fine as a mid-century Hollywood exposé, but don't expect it to get deep; the story is as shallow and manufactured as Evelyn Hugo herself. Three stars is a rounding up.
When Kennedy was in Toronto on a photoshoot back in May, one of the directors of the project asked to stop by her old office at a publishing company to see if she could get an Advanced Reading Copy of this book - she explained to Kennedy (and the others) that while she was at this office, Evelyn Hugo had been the book that everyone was most excited to be working on, and she needed to see how it shaped up. I noted the title, thinking this was a decent recommendation for my own reading, but...meh. Others being excited about this book doesn't make it any better in my mind; it is exactly what the cover suggests it is.