The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Summary
Retired film star Evelyn Hugo chooses an obscure magazine writer, Monique Grant, to record her life story. Monique does not know why she was selected. Evelyn promises to explain, but first she recounts her rise from Hell's Kitchen to Hollywood and the seven marriages that helped, complicated, or concealed that career.
The title makes the husbands look like the organizing mystery, but Evelyn's account is really about the person she loved and the bargains she made to protect that relationship. Reid moves through several decades of studio-era Hollywood, showing how publicity departments could manufacture romances while punishing queer stars and women who wanted control over their work.
The book alternates between Evelyn's long interview and Monique's present-day life. Evelyn is willing to admit when she was calculating, selfish, or cruel, which keeps her from becoming a polished Hollywood legend. A late connection between the two women gives Monique's frame story its purpose, so even vague discussions of the ending can spoil an important reveal.
Editions and purchase options
US paperback
Paperback · Washington Square Press · 2018
ISBN 9781501161933
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Themes & motifs
About Taylor Jenkins Reid
Taylor Jenkins Reid is an American novelist whose books often examine celebrity through fictional oral histories, interviews, and press coverage. Daisy Jones & The Six, Malibu Rising, and Carrie Soto Is Back occupy a loosely connected fictional world with this novel.
Daisy Jones & The Six
Taylor Jenkins Reid
A fictional seventies rock band's members revisit the fame and relationships that pulled them together and apart. This is the closest follow-up for Reid's treatment of a public success with a messy private cost. Evelyn tells her story to Monique; Daisy Jones uses an oral history with several voices, sometimes disagreeing. That format makes the reader piece together what each speaker is willing to admit.
Malibu Rising
Taylor Jenkins Reid
The four Riva siblings prepare for a party in 1983 while their family's earlier history explains what they carry into it. As in Evelyn Hugo, fame does little to protect a private life. This time the pressure falls on a family and the legacy of a famous father. The central day and sibling relationships give it a tighter frame than Evelyn's account of her whole career.
The Idea of You
Robinne Lee
Solène, a thirty-nine-year-old gallery owner, becomes involved with twenty-year-old pop star Hayes. Their relationship brings attention neither can fully control. It connects most directly with the cost of private love becoming public material in Evelyn Hugo. Lee follows an unfolding romance rather than a star looking back over decades, so choose it for the pressure of celebrity on a relationship.
The Other Boleyn Girl
Philippa Gregory
Mary Boleyn narrates her place in Henry VIII's court as her family's ambitions and her sister Anne's rise limit her choices. The setting changes from Hollywood to Tudor England, but women are still judged and used through their relationships with powerful people. This is a closer fit for Evelyn's calculations about status than for the modern celebrity setting. Read it as historical fiction, not a factual biography.
The Seven Sisters
Lucinda Riley
After her adoptive father's death, Maia follows clues about her origins to Brazil. A story in the present opens onto an earlier generation's choices and romance. Readers who followed Evelyn's revelations can follow another life being gradually uncovered here. It begins a family saga rather than a Hollywood career story; the first novel follows Maia, not every sister's complete history.
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