SPOILER WARNING FOR TAYLOR JENKINS REID’S THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO. Also, one reference to domestic abuse in the first ranking.
Okay, this sort of “ranking” article is quite cliche, and given I did another “list” style post last time, it may come across like I’m becoming more of a conformist. To be honest, I don’t get enough viewers to upset any of them (and I’m too broke to get a domain, maybe in a couple years), plus I’m not trying to be cliche. I actually thought this would be a fun post, because I really enjoyed The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I care enough about it to make a ranking piece about it.
So I’m going to rank her husbands from worst to best, in terms of how well they actually did at fulfilling that role. Obviously, the actual love of her life was Celia , but I feel that her each of her marriages was thoroughly intriguing in and of itself so here is a ranking of the men behind each one. Hope you enjoy!
7) “Goddamn” Don Adler- husband number two
Pretty obvious who’s the worst out of her husbands, right? It’s a seriously cruel irony that the only one she was actually in love with treated her the worst. Evelyn genuinely loved Don Adler, but he was physically and emotionally abusive towards her throughout the two years of their marriage, not to mention cheating on her. Adler is actually a sadly realistic character as Evelyn’s marriage to him represents the real life experience of those who suffer domestic abuse at the hands of partners they previously thought to be some of the kindest people who wouldn’t dream of hurting them. He later apologised for how he acted but yeah, he sucked.
…it’ll get more fun, I promise.
6) “Gullible” Mick Riva- husband number three
Mick was basically her husband for a matter of hours, so....can’t exactly call him brilliant. At least he actually seemed to want the best for Evelyn given he didn’t push her to stay with him after getting married in Vegas, so I guess he was better than Don. However, their marriage was a ruse cooked up by Evelyn to put a stop to circulating rumours that she and Celia St James were lovers, so it barely constitutes a marriage anyway.
5) “Disappointing” Maxime Girard-husband number six
Max Girard is something of an arsehole. He claimed to be in love with Evelyn but she correctly saw that he really loved the idea of her, loved being able to say he was with her. He turned pretty nasty when he found Evelyn’s letters to Celia, threatening to out her and attempting to ruin her after their marriage ended, though ironically the media actually defended her-after years of parasitic speculation over her sexuality-when Girard explicitly stated she was lesbian (more accurately bisexual but this wasn’t a fact Girard really considered when outing her).
4) “Poor” Ernie Diaz- husband number one
Ernie was Evelyn’s first husband and she married him at age 15, though she was lying about her age as she needed a wealthy husband so she could have the stability to give her the chance at becoming an actress. It’s noted that he might have suspected that she was younger than she said she was, which makes him.... sketchy, in my eyes, but he did give her stability, didn’t mistreat her or anything and seemed to actually care about her, so not the worst husband ever.
3) “Clever” Rex North- husband number four
This marriage is basically the one Evelyn could be the most honest about herself in. She was up front from the start with Rex in telling him their marriage would be to fool and engage the outside world only. There was never anything more than platonic but it was healthy enough in that no-one got hurt by it, which is more than you can say for some of her other marriages. It never turned into more than basically a business arrangement-Rex did make something of a move on her at one point, but after Evelyn told him no he did respect her boundaries. Eh, he’s fine.
2) “Agreeable” Robert Jamison-husband number seven
We know the least about this character out of all of Evelyn’s husbands, he’s just Celia’s brother and “agreeably” agreed to marry Evelyn so Celia and Evelyn could finally really live out their relationship in secret. For that, he’s probably a good guy-at least, supportive of two gay women in the 1980s- and Evelyn and Celia finally got to live as a (virtual) married couple thanks to him. Good job, Robert.
1) “Brilliant, kindhearted, tortured” Harry Cameron- husband number five
I’m reminded of a quote from Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (yes, I know) when I think of Harry Cameron’s relationship to Evelyn. In A Doll’s House, the character of Nora says to her best friend Dr Rank, “You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.” It was Celia she was in love with but Harry was Evelyn’s best friend and most “kindhearted” husband. The two of them may not have actually been in love, but they did love each other as best friends and raised a daughter together, plus-given theirs was a cover up marriage as at the time they were both in loving same-sex relationships- they were pretty much the happiest when they were married to one another.
Komentáře