Book Review: The Seven Husbands by Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This story starts with a journalist called Monique Grant. She’s a middle aged, biracial white and African American woman and soon-to-be divorcee. Monique is not a well-known journalist and is going through a rough patch. Therefore, everyone is shocked when Evelyn Hugo, a 1950s Hollywood icon, wants her for an exclusive interview. Evelyn's life is riddled with powerful friendships, forbidden love and a profuse amount of fame, and is most notorious for marrying seven men. Monique tries to unravel this conundrum of a life.
Evelyn's parents emigrated from Cuba and settled in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. Evelyn and her mother always used to fantasise about travelling to Hollywood and becoming famous. Her mother died, however, when Evelyn was eleven. Ever since then Evelyn has dreamed of getting as far away from Hell's Kitchen as possible. She did this by using her charm and her sexual appeal, learning how to do it at a very young age. So when she found out that Ernie Diaz was leaving for Los Angeles, she decided to marry him.
In 1954 she gets a job as an actress with Sunset studios where she meets Harry Cameron. She is forced to change her hair colour, name and language to fit into Hollywood's standard. Evelyn divorces Ernie Diaz because he has fulfilled his purpose in her plan. She falls deeply in love with a distinguished actor, Don Adler. She discovers that he is easily provoked. Their relationship turns very toxic, in which he would take out his frustrations on her and also apologise with gifts afterward. Evelyn falls out of love with Don but quickly finds another. She falls for one Celina St. James, another actress. After two years of marriage Don divorces Evelyn for abandonment. To divert public attention from Evelyn and Celina's relationship; Evelyn decides to remarry quickly. She picks a singer called Mick Riva. After they had had sex she makes sure he'll divorce her by acting very cold towards him. Celina didn't know they'd had slept together until Evelyn finds out she's pregnant. Celina despises Evelyn for this and leaves her. Evelyn is devastated but too stubborn to admit her mistake. Evelyn later gets an abortion.
Evelyn is about to star in Anna Karenina and for extra publicity she marries her co-star, Rex North. Make a special agreement in which they will stay married for increased fame only. After two and a half years Rex falls in love and impregnates another woman. Evelyn stages an affair with Harry Cameron so that Rex isn't blamed for the divorce. With that Evelyn decides to get married to Harry Cameron, her best friend. He is a homosexual and is in love with Celina's Husband John. Evelyn contacts Celina and they make up. They all decide to move to New York City and start a somewhat family together. They seem like two heterosexual pairs to the press, but in truth they are all homosexuals. Both Evelyn and Harry want a biological child but Celina isn't too fond of this idea. She doesn't understand how Evelyn can love both men and women and despises the men she has slept with. After the birth of Connor, Harry and Evelyn's child, she gets back into acting with none other than Don Adler. They do a sex scene in which Evelyn tries to convey female pleasure. It becomes extremely important to Evelyn to do this, to show other women that it is all right to want to be desired. Celina hates this and leaves Evelyn again. John dies at 50 years of age and after that their whole family they'd had built up was destroyed.
Evelyn falls in love with Max Girard, a film director. She divorces Harry to pursue Max but it turns out that he only wanted her as a trophy wife. After a few years of an unhappy marriage, Evelyn decides to contact Celina again. They write love letters to each other but Max finds Celina's letters and they get a divorce. Evelyn and Celina are reunited and makes plans to move to Spain.
Unfortunately Harry and his lover die in a car crash. Everyone mourns for his loss but especially Evelyn. Evelyn and Celina decide to move to Spain with Conner. Celina's brother marries Evelyn so nobody would suspect the women of being in a relationship. They live happily there until Celina dies. From there Evelyn has tried to live her life without the love of her life and soulmate.
I think Evelyn’s parental influences had great importance for how she ended up. Her mother was the number one reason why Evelyn wanted to be an actress and why she continued after years of agony. It did not come up in the book but I think deep down that Evelyn knew she did it for her mother. On the other hand, I think her father was one of the leading reasons why she stayed married to Don Adler for so long. Evelyn portrays her father as a very brutal man who often hit her. This influenced Evelyn into thinking that this was normal behavior from loved ones. After leaving for Hollywood, Evelyn and her father never crossed paths.
Evelyn's nationality has always been problematic for her career but she wasn’t much bothered at first. She was very eager to change whatever she could to fit in. However, later in the book we come to understand how embarrassed and self conscious Evelyn is about her nationality. She occasionally speaks with her maid, who speaks Spanish, and she expresses deep regret for not continuing with the language.
As for Harry's, Celina's and Evelyn's relationship, Evelyn describes Celina as the love of her life but Harry as her soulmate. Whilst Evelyn and Celina have a eros kind of love; Harry and Evelyn have a more philia and agape kind of love. The two lovers have their ups and down but will always have a burning passion for one another. This kind of love can give you an ultimate high but it can be taken away just as easily. As it did for Evelyn Hugo, she will always regret all those years they had stayed cross at each other. However Evelyn always had one person that she could turn to, Harry Cameron. He was her soulmate and their love was ever lasting. I think this kind of love is infinitely more important than lust or attraction. It is more stables than eros, shown in Evelyn and Harrys relationship. They always stick together and have each others interests at heart.
Evelyn is a complex person. She is ambitious, selfish and cunning. She exactly knows how to control the press and the people around her. Evelyn was beautifully written but I cannot say the same for the side character Monique. She was extremely plain and her story was awfully developed. I thought that her character was interesting in the beginning and would have loved to see her progress through out the book. She got no such thing. We barely got any time with her and therefore I was less empathetic and understanding of her actions later in the book. There was a bit of growth when she stands up for herself against her job and husband.
Monique, although being the first main character that we are introduced to, is extremely simple and boring. Jenkins Reid did not give the reader enough context or instances in which we could empathise with her. I can see how Jenkins Reid tries to portray Monique as this naïve and frustrated woman who, with the help of Evelyn, transforms into a strong-willed character. I understand that, but I do not think it was executed particularly well. It could have been substantially better if it either could have given the reader more content to really feel the character through or deleted her character arch all together.
I found the structure of the book to contribute a great deal to the book's captivating nature. It had short chapters which made it nearly impossible to put it down. Nevertheless the writing was not that great. It is not a poetic wonder; far from it, in fact. I think it has too many commas and the simple “OK” really infuriates me. The points where they switch between narrators is really unclear as will since they are both in first person perspective.
There was an instance where I found the perspective-change to be very insightful, in Chapter 28, Jenkins Reid mixes it up a bit. While Evelyn Hugo is describing seducing a man, it is more like she is telling you how to do it. Instead of using the pronoun I; you is used. This places great emphasis on how Evelyn Hugo tries hard to forget this part of her life.
Although I thought the plot twist was a bit melodramatic and predictable I still enjoyed the book very much. The characters and story defiantly made up for the writing. It was very easy to fall in love with these character and I think that Evelyn remine a favorite for a long time.
