The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Simon and Schuster 2017) by Taylor Jenkins Reid is one of those books that I bought ages ago (actually YEARS) and had sitting in my TBR pile for so long, hearing great things about it but never getting to it. I’m so glad I finally placed it at the top of the pile. This is a fantastic read – well written, expertly crafted, an engaging plot, unforgettable characters and a slow-burning mystery that is masterfully controlled.
If you love screen history and good old-fashioned cinema icons, if you love reading about the glamourous lives of the rich and famous (and their hidden, secret selves), if you adore sumptuous lifestyles and gorgeous gowns and the celebrity gossip that accompanies the lives of those in the spotlight, then you will enjoy this story from beginning to end.
Movie icon Evelyn Hugo, now 79 and a recluse, used to be the golden girl of Hollywood, her name on everyone’s lips, her roles resplendent with glamour, and her personal life – especially her seven marriages – the talk of the town. The book opens with Hugo contacting a young, relatively inexperienced journalist, Monique Grant, who works at a fashion magazine, to request her specifically to write a tell-all piece about her life, and about the upcoming auction of many of her famous ballgowns for charity. The magazine is thrilled to be offered the exclusive but cannot understand why Hugo is demanding that one of their rather junior reporters be the one to handle the story.
Nobody is more surprised or bemused by this request than Monique Grant herself. She doesn’t know Hugo, or have any connection to her, and can only assume that perhaps Hugo has chosen a relatively inexperienced journalist so that she can control the narrative. Whatever the reason, it is too good an opportunity to pass up, especially when it is revealed early on – during their first meeting – that what Hugo really wants is not a cover story about dresses, but something much more. She wants Grant to write her biography, a full disclosure about her love life (and those curious seven husbands), her professional life and everything in between. For several weeks, the two women meet daily as Grant records everything Hugo tells her, including secrets and past history that has never before been made public.
All of this makes for such a great story – the glamour, the stardom, the wealth and luxury, the complicated relationships and professional opportunities, the Oscars and the near wins and the hits and misses. But there is also a subtle underlying thread that the author sews into the narrative early on and weaves skilfully throughout: the question of why Monique Grant, and why now? This is flagged from the beginning but then the story following Hugo’s life becomes so interesting and complex, that the reader forgets or puts aside the initial mysterious request. It is only towards the last chapters that she reintroduces it to the reader with a few subtle hints; comments made by Hugo that Grant may not like her once she knows the full truth.
And when she reveals that truth, at the very end of the book, it is a complete bombshell that I certainly did not expect, but that in a way feels very inevitable. The whole thing suddenly made sense, and what was previously an entertaining story becomes a different level of complexity around human relationships, love, betrayal, guilt, pride, loss, resolution and restitution.
Navigating themes of sexuality, diversity, race, class, success, ambition, secrets and lies, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a classic, beautiful and ambitious story told with well researched history, and an extraordinary control over human emotions, and the behaviours we are willing to enact – or to tolerate – in some areas of our lives in order to achieve love or success or satisfaction in others.
A generous, exciting and compelling read.