The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: a substantial love story or a commentary on the futile chase for glamour?

In The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the yet-to-be-discovered magazine reporter Monique Grant is equally amazed and dubious to be personally selected to write about the life of aging Hollywood movie star Evelyn Hugo. Through learning about the riveting turns and twists of Hugo’s life, Monique begins to understand more than she expects to understand about Hugo’s life of glamour and spectacle, and how it intertwines with her own.

The title makes her out to be someone who will never know life on the sidelines, life as an outcast

It is clear in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo that the author, Taylor Jenkins Reid, knows very well the expectations and workings of the reader’s mind. The title, to begin with, is crafted in the most perfect fashion, to allow readers such as myself to assume all sorts of things about Evelyn Hugo. A seductive, passionate, over-the-top movie star – someone who has experienced life from the centre of the world from the moment they were born and expected nothing less. Someone who sees men through a superficial lens and miraculously maintains a position of respect and admiration, or at least incredulous fascination, from society. The title makes her out to be someone who will never know life on the sidelines, life as an outcast. Reid allows the reader to believe they know everything there is to know about this character before the novel is even opened.

She takes these assumptions and then tears them apart.

One of my favourite things about this novel is how well Reid shows the progression of Evelyn as she encounters new eras of her life. She is at first a stock protagonist, with clear ambitions and a tunnel vision for a prosperous future. As she ages, however, we learn more about the fluidity of her nature, and how colourful her view of life becomes through her emotional development. At first, I felt a sense of protectiveness over her fiery passion and will to prosper in her career. A compelling case is made about why Evelyn is the way she is, and I found myself rooting for her constantly. This makes the events that follow even more tragic and heartbreaking. I have never read a novel where the emotional attachment that forms from watching the aging of a protagonist from their teenage years all the way till their seventies has been so close to what I imagine it would be like to watch a friend grow and experience life – so personal, so emotional, and so cathartic.

The depiction of love and intimacy is to be highlighted as one of the main catalysers for the drama and livelihood in this novel. Personally, I found the presentation of Evelyn’s love for Don Adler, and even Harry Cameron, as strong and compelling. I saw the attachment she had to them, and the passion in which she imagined the rest of her life with both of them, both romantic and platonic, was convincing and electric. However, despite the abundance of description and elaboration on the love Evelyn has for Celia, I did not feel that I was as strongly convinced about the romantic, platonic love they so outwardly share with the reader.

I did not see in Celia what Reid wanted us to see, and I did not understand from Evelyn’s point of view how madly in love she was with her, despite the evidence of their love in the novel being abundant. I found aspects of their love arduous and lethargic – too domestic and dull, too soon. The toxic aspects of their relationship did not influence my disappointment, I should preface, as I felt more convinced of her tragic love for Don Adler despite his abusive nature. The language felt more compelling and substantial in those cases, and I felt her heartache when she realised these men were not who she wished they could be for her. With Celia, Evelyn’s love felt oddly obligatory – and I believe this was not Reid’s intention.

The devastating ending is both heartbreaking and equally satisfying. In a modern culture of novels that conclude with abstracted, convoluted endings, with lacklustre cliffhangers and artistically unique choices, I enjoy the simple and straightforward ending that this novel has. The message of the futility of glamour and pretence, the cost of ambition and the desperation of hidden love is beautifully wrapped up and neatly concluded, which is refreshing and serves well to the matter-of-fact tone and style of the protagonist. I felt that as a reader, I am left thinking about the themes and ideas that have come into fruition at the end of the book after being tampered with throughout the plot, instead of being confused or unsatisfied with the final lines. This well-polished ending is perhaps the most impactful part of the novel, turning it into a story that follows a strong, unwavering line of thought and commits to a powerfully devastating but, in parallel, bittersweet ending.