The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I don’t look like I am half of one thing and half of another but rather one whole thing, theirs. Loved.

Don may have taught me that I was capable of loving someone and desiring him. But he also taught me that you could desire someone even when you don’t like him, that you can desire someone especially when you don’t like him. I believe today they call it hate-fucking. But it’s a crude name for something that

is a very human, sensual experience.

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth.

When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when

you stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe wit...

But I was tiring of him. What’s that saying? Behind every gorgeous woman, there’s a man sick of screwing her? Well, it works both ways. No one mentions that part.

I’m not suggesting that charming girls should take pity on the pretty ones. I’m just saying it’s not so great being loved for something you didn’t do.

threaded the needle that is being sexually satisfying without ever appearing to desire sexual satisfaction.

I’m bisexual. Don’t ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box, Monique. Don’t do that.”

I have spent my life knowing the importance of allowing people to tell you who they are instead of reducing them to labels.

I was taught to like men, and I had found—albeit temporarily—love and lust with a man. The fact that I wanted to be around Celia all the time, the fact that I cared about her enough that I valued her happiness over my own, the fact that I liked to

think about that moment when she stood in front of me without her shirt on—now, you put those pieces together, and you say, one plus one equals I’m in love with a woman. But back then, at least for me, I didn’t have that equation. And if you don’t even realize that there’s a formula to be working with, how the hell are you supposed to find the answer?”

I did not know what I was doing. And by that I mean that I was not fully in control of my movement and that I was physically unaware of how to kiss her. Should it be the way I kissed men, or should it be different somehow? I also did not understand the emotional scope of my actions. I did not truly understand their significance or risk.

Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny

You wonder what it must be like to be a man, to be so confident that the final say is yours.

“So am I a whore or not?” “Who knows?” he said. “We’re all whores, really, in some way or another. At least in Hollywood.

So, you know, put whatever label you want on it, just don’t change. That would be the real tragedy.”

“Evelyn, you are not capable of giving it up. And you never will be. And it will be the tragedy of my life that I cannot love you enough to make you mine. That you cannot be loved enough to be anyone’s.”

“There’s a difference between sexuality and

sex. I used sex to get what I wanted. Sex is just an act. Sexuality is a sincere expression of desire and pleasure. That I always kept for Celia.” “I hadn’t thought about it like that before,” I say. “Being bisexual didn’t make me disloyal,” Evelyn says. “One has nothing to do with the other. Nor did it mean that Celia could only fulfill half my needs.” I find myself interrupting her. “I didn’t—” “I know you’re not saying that,” Evelyn says. “But I want you to have it in my words. When Celia said she couldn’t have all of me, it was because I was selfish and

because I was scared of losing everything I had. Not because I had two sides of me that one person could never fulfill. I broke Celia’s heart because I spent half my time loving her and the other half hiding how much I loved her. Never once did I cheat on Celia. If we’re defining cheating by desiring another person and then making love to that person. I never once did that. When I was with Celia, I was with Celia. The same way any woman married to a man is with that man. Did I look...

“The problem was, I used my body to get other things I wanted. And I didn’t stop doing that, even for her. That’s my tragedy. That I used my body when it was all I had, and then I kept using it even when I had other options. I kept using it even when I knew it would hurt the woman I loved. And what’s more, I made her complicit in it. I put her in a position to continually have to approve of my choices at her own expense. Celia may have left me in a huff, but it was a death by a thou...

“I slept with Mick because I wanted to protect our careers, mine and hers. And that was more important to me than the sanctity of our relationship. And I slept with Harry because I wanted a baby, and I thought people would get suspicious if we adopted. Because I was afraid to draw attention to the sexlessness of our marriage. And I chose that over the sanctity of our relationship. And when Max Girard had a good idea about a creative cho...

Which is about the cruelest thing you can do to someone you love, give them just enough good to make them stick through a hell of a lot of bad. Of course, I realized all this when she left me. And I tried to fix it. But it was too late. As she said, she simply couldn’t do it anymore. Because it took me too long to figure out what I cared about. Not because of my sexuality.

No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal.”

You don’t have to make yourself OK for a good mother; a good mother makes herself OK for you.

“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.”