The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel

What follows is an excerpt from my forthcoming biography, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, to be published next year.
I have settled on that title because I once asked her if she was embarrassed about having been married so many times.
I said, “Doesn’t it bother you? That your husbands have become such a headline story, so often mentioned, that they have nearly eclipsed your work and yourself? That all anyone talks about when they talk about you are the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo?”
And her answer was quintessential Evelyn.
“No,” she told me. “Because they are just husbands. I am Evelyn Hugo. And anyway, I think once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in my wife.”

“I hate you, you know.”

Evelyn nods. “Good for you. It’s such an uncomplicated feeling, isn’t it? Hatred?”

“Yes,” I say. “It is.”

“Everything else in life is more complex. Especially your father. That’s why I thought it was so important that you read that letter. I wanted you to know.”

“What, exactly? That he was innocent? Or that he loved a man?”

“That he loved you. Like that. He was willing to turn down romantic love in order to stand by your side. Do you know what an amazing father you had? Do you know how loved you were? Plenty of men say they’ll never leave their families, but your father was put to the test and didn’t even blink. I wanted you to know that. If I had a father like that, I would have wanted to know.”

No one is all good or all bad. I know this, of course. I had to learn it at a young age. But sometimes it’s easy to forget just how true it is. That it applies to everyone.

Until you’re sitting in front of the woman who put your father’s dead body in the driver’s seat of a car to save the reputation of her best friend—and you realize she held on to a letter for almost three decades because she wanted you to know how much you were loved.

She could have given me the letter earlier. She also could have thrown it away. There’s Evelyn Hugo for you. Somewhere in the middle.

On the other hand, Connor was growing more and more annoyed by me every day. She found her mother to be the very epitome of embarrassment. The fact that I was a world-renowned film star seemed to have absolutely no effect on just how big of an idiot Connor saw me to be. So I was often happier in L.A., with Celia, than I was in New York, constantly rejected by my own flesh and blood. But I would have dropped it all in a heartbeat if I thought Connor might want even an evening of my time.