First impressions review: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I feel a bit late to the party in talking about this book after seeing several years-worth of reviews raving about it. To tell the truth, though, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up based on the blurb on the back :“Reclusive Hollywood icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life”. Those glowing reviews spilled the beans on Evelyn’s secrets enough to intrigue me, though. After all, I don’t think I’ve ever met another Cuban-American bisexual woman in real life, let alone as the main character of a hugely popular novel. And she gets to be messy and real, and not a perfect heroine? OK, sign me up! The book was just as much a page-turner as promised - though I feel it delivers better on one of those secrets than the other.
The story starts with Monique Grant, a low-level magazine writer, being unexpectedly invited to interview the famous but mysterious actress. Her editor assumes it has something to do with an upcoming charity auction, but in fact Evelyn announces that she wants Monique to write her whole life story and publish it after she is dead. Intrigued, Monique agrees, not realizing the ways her own life story has and will intertwine with Evelyn’s.
The aging bombshell reveals that she was born Evelyn Herrera. Becoming
aware of her attractiveness to men at an uncomfortably early age, she decides
to use those assets to get out of her poor neighborhood. She marries husband
#1, who had just got a job rigging lights for MGM, at age 14 (claiming to be
16) to get herself to Hollywood. After 3 small roles, she approaches producer
Harry Cameron – “Harry was one of the only men on the lot who didn’t stare
directly at my chest. It actually bothered me, as if I’d been doing something
wrong. It just goes to show that if you tell a woman her only skill is to be
desirable, she will believe you” – and asks for a bigger part. That turns
out to be the start of the most important friendship in her life. After a
blonde dye job, a name change, an annulment, and a…favor to another of
the bigshots, she starts getting the kind of parts she wants. She meets her
other most important person while playing Jo in ‘Little Women’ – her co-star
Celia St. James. In the meantime, Evelyn marries husband #2, Don Adler. He is
handsome and famous, and Evelyn falls hard for him, but he has a dark side she
did not suspect. As for the rest of the marriages…in most cases both parties
know that it is an arrangement in which they both get something – usually not
including love.
There’s some good commentary on fame and its prices. Evelyn has a brilliant career, but she’s acting offstage as much as on. After all, when you’re famous someone’s always got a camera! The insertion of newspaper articles or blogs with that catty tone that is so common when people write about famous women adds to the realism. A comment on one of them both appropriately calls this out and serves as a bit of foreshadowing regarding what matters to Evelyn and why: “This is a woman who has donated MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to charities for battered women’s organizations and LGBTQ+ interests, and now she’s auctioning off gowns for cancer research and all you can talk about is her eyebrow game? Seriously?”
Evelyn and Celia’s first conversation is amazingly frank about their ambition and competitiveness. But then something interesting happens: [Celia] “I’m more talented than you, and you’re more powerful than me.” [Evelyn] “So?” “…So I’m trying this a different way. Let’s help each other out…After hours, I’ll help you with your scenes…You help me do what you’ve done. Become a star.” But, of course, when Evelyn and Celia’s relationship goes beyond helpful friendship, there starts to be a conflict between what must be done to maintain their careers and the other things they want in their lives: primarily to live openly with each other.
As I mentioned earlier, part of what drew me to this book was sharing the same two “hidden identities” with Evelyn. Not that I’ve ever had to or tried to hide either my Latina-ness or (once I figured it out myself, embarrassingly recently) my bisexuality, but neither is immediately visible to someone who doesn’t know me. That can be both an unasked-for advantage and a bit weird and uncomfortable – especially when someone makes an erroneous assumption about what does or doesn’t apply to you - and this book does capture some relatable moments. For instance, this: "[Harry] 'Your name is Evelyn Diaz…I can’t put you in a movie and try to pretend you’re not Mexican.' [Evelyn] 'I’m Cuban.' 'For our purposes, same difference.' It was not the same difference, but I saw absolutely no merit in trying to explain that to him." Conversely, she catches the maid telling her mother on the phone “'La señora es tan bonita, pero loca' (The lady is beautiful but crazy)” because she didn’t think someone who looked like Evelyn could speak Spanish. Or there is the moment where Evelyn says the true love of her life was Celia, and Monique says: “'So this book, your biography…you’re ready to come out as a gay woman?' Evelyn closes her eyes for a moment…I realize she is trying to process my stupidity. 'Haven’t you been listening to a single thing I’ve told you? I loved Celia, but I also, before her, loved Don. In fact, I’m positive that if Don hadn’t turned out to be a spectacular asshole, I probably never would have been capable of falling in love with someone else at all.'”
Preach, Evelyn!
The relationships between Evelyn and Celia and Harry are well written and compelling. Evelyn and Harry’s platonic care and support for one another is great. Evelyn and Celia’s love, on the other hand, is passionate and tumultuous and messy - and has to be a secret:“Listen to me, Celia. I love you. And I can’t let you throw away everything you have built – and all your incredible talent – by taking a stand when no one will stand with us…We could end up in a prison or a mental hospital…It happens. Certainly, you can count on the fact that no one would return our calls. Not even Harry.” [Celia] “Of course Harry would. Harry’s…one of us.” “Which is precisely why he could never be caught talking to us again.”
Ouch! Harry gets in another pointed and accurate observation when Evelyn tearfully asks if he thinks she’s a whore:“Imagine if every single woman on the planet wanted something in exchange when she gave up her body. You’d all be ruling the place…Only men like me would stand a chance against you. And that’s the last thing those assholes want, a world run by people like you and me.” They and John (officially Celia’s husband, actually Harry’s) get pretty excited by Stonewall. The other three convince Celia they can’t go down there, as they’d just steal the spotlight from the protesters. But they realize they are in a very good position to fund them!
However, if I had one gripe with the book it would be in how the story is set up to so easily distance Evelyn from her Cuban heritage that it not only never causes an issue for her but doesn’t even shape her thinking much. First, she just so happens to have the right shape to pass for a non-Latina bombshell with just a dye job and a different last name – tall, big boobs, practically no butt or hips. It might have been more interesting if she’d pulled off her career while looking more like, say, Camila Cabello. That might be partly my own beauty preferences talking…but having reason for a little speculation about her background seems like it would fit with the nosy Hollywood culture1. Second, she has almost no living relatives other than a drunk of a dad who never bothered to follow up with her after she got married and ran off to California, so she never has to have those relationships strained by her public image. She doesn’t bond with any other maybe-not-standard-white-people (Mick Riva, perhaps?) in the same way she does with her queer friends, nor does she take note of relevant news items the same way. Evelyn mentions noticing the Revolution, but there’s no mention of the Cuban missile crisis, or various waves of refugees from Cuba or elsewhere in Latin America, or growing Latinx acceptance in Hollywood, or the group-level ‘whitening’ of Cubans in the US in general. And that feels unlikely2. Perhaps Reid felt leaning into both identities would add too many extra complications, or didn’t feel comfortable writing that experience - though I haven’t found any mention in her bios of not being straight, and she wrote that bit fine. But it’s a little bit of a missed opportunity.
1. I’m 30-some years
younger than Evelyn and still had people play “guess the ethnicity” at least
once a year when I lived in whiter states: “So are you Greek?” “You’re Filipino,
right?” “Your hair looks like my friend who’s Puerto Rican.” “No, I mean where
are you FROM?” It was rare enough to be kind of amusing rather than insulting, but if it had mattered like it would to Evelyn's life...
2. I’m only half Cuban and grew up in the Midwest, rather than presumably more heavily Hispanic Hell’s Kitchen of the early 1950s, but that family and cultural history still shapes the way I think about and react to certain things. Immigration policy, for instance!
I don’t know the last time I read a book with a female character as likeably unlikeable as Evelyn. What I mean is that she does a lot of things that are harsh or manipulative or otherwise ethically questionable in pursuit of her goals, but you can always see why she makes that choice – even if you wouldn’t, or tell yourself you wouldn’t, do the same. As Evelyn says at the beginning: “I didn’t say I was confessing any sins. To say that what I have to tell is a sin is misleading and hurtful…To be clear, there are things I regret. It’s just…it’s not really the sordid things.” She’s pretty honest with herself, and with Celia and Monique, about the kind of person she is: highly ambitious, the right kind of clever for her chosen path, and absolutely willing both to use anyone who’d use her and to spin whatever lies are necessary to protect herself and those she cares about. Whether those she is protecting want that protection is another matter! I actually struggled more not to be mad at Celia. Not too much, mind you: Her pain and frustration with hiding her true self is very understandable. But she frequently acts like she doesn’t know what it would mean if the press found out about her relationship with Evelyn - or as if she thinks either of them has the right personality to run away and be cottage-core wives in the woods. Celia only seems to decide discretion is fine after all when it is no longer strictly necessary. But a quiet retirement after all they've been through sounds nice, especially if one were dealing with health issues, so it is a rational decision.
Overall recommendation: I don’t usually care much for ‘lifestyles of the rich and famous’ or relationship drama stories - and this totally won me over, so if you DO normally like either, you are in for a treat! One could argue that some of the commentary is a little on-the-nose. But sometimes, unfortunately, it DOES have to be said and I find it satisfying to see it said well.
