Gioia Diliberto

I read this biography of Hemingway's first wife when it came out in 2000 and I really enjoyed it. Wish I still owned a copy because I'd like to re-read parts of it now. My Mom also read it back then and we agreed that it gave readers a fresh, new way of seeing both Hemingway and his writing. I just now (2010) finished Hemingway's The Garden of Eden and had flash backs to reading Hadley. This is a spoiler, but one of the revelations in Hadley was that Hadley and Hemingway played around with gender roles in the bedroom and also got the same haircut at one point. The Garden of Eden seems to use those experience, albeit in a rather dark way.… (mais)

Coco Chanel is remembered today as a fashion icon and strong businesswoman, who redefined feminine chic and built a world-famous design brand. But Chanel was a complex character with a darker side.

Gioia Diliberto’s new novel is based on the true story of Chanel's war-time romance with a German spy and how that affair led to her arrest for treason following the Liberation of Paris. The story is fascinating in how it neither glorifies nor demonizes Chanel, but portrays her honestly, as a 60-year-old woman desperate to preserve a semblance of her pre-war life even if it meant deceiving herself and lying to her friends – and her interrogators.

Coco at the Ritz is historical fiction at its page-turning best.… (mais)