History Literature / TheSevenHusbandsOfEvelynHugo

* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted. The "one night marriage" with Mick Riva results in a pregnancy. Evelyn has Harry drive her to Tijuana, Mexico in order to get an abortion. While she never regrets that decision, she does regret the events that led up to it and how the pregnancy tore her relationship with Celia apart.

** After the death of his lover, Harry turned to alcohol in order to get through each day. The only thing that kept him from completely drowning in it was his producing work and his then five-year-old daughter. [[spoiler:His death was a result of driving while drunk; he had crashed his car into a tree, instantly killing his then boyfriend, James Grant, and severely wounding Harry. Evelyn found the crash and had Harry taken to the hospital where he would ultimately die of his injuries.]]

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Evelyn is a Cuban-American who began her actressing career in 50s America, a time period in which roles for POC actors were ''severly'' limited, such as being routinely casted as servants. While Evelyn has light skin, she still had to dye her hair blonde and use a different last name (Hugo instead of Herrera) to seem less ethnic and thus get roles traditionally given to white actors, such as leading roles.
* DifferingPrioritiesBreakup: Evelyn is ambitious and thirsty for fame and glory. Celia is easily jealous and desires a normal life with Evelyn. This creates tension in their relationship, and is a major reason why the two of them break up at two different points in their lives.

* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: Evelyn is not happy to discover that Don Adler has affairs. On the other hand, Evelyn exclusively sleeps with married men in her marriage with Rex North, since they are the one's to keep quiet about it.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted. The One-Night-Marriage with Mick Riva results in a pregnancy, which Evelyn "takes care of." Possibly played straight with Celia, who is exasperated when Evelyn tells her this, though it is unclear if she is mad about the abortion on top of Evelyn's callousness or if the abortion is just a symptom of it she detests.

* ItsNotYouItsMe: Mick Riva invokes this when he "breaks up" with Evelyn, feeding her the same line "he fed to the papers about his last wife."

* MakingTheChoiceForYou: Evelyn makes a few morally questionable choices to hide her and Celia's relationship from the public. Celia does not take her decisions very well.
* ManipulativeBastard: Evelyn knows she's a great manipulator and uses this skill to her full advantage to get what she wants. She outright states that this is the difference between her and Celia: Evelyn knows how to use people and is willing to go to big lengths to manipulate them into doing what she wants. This is how she tricks Mick Riva into marrying ''and'' divorcing her in one night while making both events look like they were his idea. The chapter itself resembles an instructional guide thanks to using second person pronouns, laying her plan out step by step.
* NoBisexuals: Subverted. Evelyn has only ever fallen in love twice: the first time to Don Adler, her first husband who turned out to have an abusive streak, and again with Celia St. James. One of the points of contention in her and Celia's relationship was that Celia couldn't accept the fact that Evelyn was attracted to both men ''and'' women. ([[spoiler:It took Celia until the last years of her life to finally make peace with it.]]) Evelyn herself has never been comfortable enough to talk about her romance with Celia until she meets Monique, who gives her the space to admit that she loved Celia. And when Monique makes the mistake of referring to Evelyn as gay, Evelyn explicitly refers to herself as bisexual.

* NoBisexuals: Subverted. Bisexuals very much do exist, and Evelyn is one of them. One of the points of contention in her and Celia's relationship was that Celia couldn't accept the fact that Evelyn was attracted to both men ''and'' women. [[spoiler:It took her until the last years of her life to finally make peace with it]].

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Evelyn has shades of both Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe--she is a famous sex symbol, and she had to conceal her real ethnic background (like Hayworth, who hid her Spanish heritage to escape "exotic foreigner" roles), and married an older man as a teenager in order to gain independence (like Monroe). There's also flavors of Elizabeth Taylor (the amount of marriages), Ava Gardner (who, like Hugo, revealed her secrets to a journalist for a book published after her death), and Katherine Hepburn (starring as Jo in an adaptation of ''Literature/LittleWomen'' as Hepburn did, and Hugo's win at the 1982 Oscars supplants Hepburn's real life win).

* OneTrueLove: For the first third of the novel, the DrivingQuestion is who, out of all her husbands, was Evelyn's greatest love? The answer was none of them: the love of Evelyn's life was Celia St. James, her longtime "rival" and secret lover.
* OpportunisticBastard: Nick the cab driver is this after Evelyn has him help her cover up [[spoiler:Harry's drunk driving]]. In exchange for his silence, he asks Evelyn to help him become a star.
* PlatonicLifePartners: Evelyn and Harry have known each other since the beginning of her acting career.

** Celia agrees with Evelyn's plan to marry Mick Riva to distract the press from their relationship. However, Celia did not realize that Evelyn had to consummate the marriage and Evelyn didn't explicitly say so since she figured that Celia would've picked up on the implication. When Evelyn reveals that she's pregnant with Mick's baby, Celia reacts so badly that it causes the women to break up and not speak to one another for ''five years''.
** Evelyn shoots a sex scene with her former husband Don Adler but doesn't consult Celia before doing so. When she admits what she did, Celia leaves her again.

** Celia was this for Evelyn. Her first love was Don Adler, who turned out to be a DomesticAbuser.
** After the death of John, Harry thought he would never love again. He eventually did find love again with [[spoiler:Monique's father, James Grant]].
* SecretRelationship: Due to living in an overtly homophobic era, Evelyn has to keep her relationship with Celia and Harry his relationship to John Braverman under wraps, or else all of the lives they've carefully built for themselves would come crashing down.

* TheVerse: Reid's novels after ''Seven Husbands'' include the slightly altered Hollywood of this book.
** Daisy Jones in ''Literature/DaisyJonesAndTheSix'' attends a wild party that Evelyn's then ex-third husband, Mick Riva, is hosting. He gets a tiny cameo in which he's smooching a couple underage girls while he himself is at least forty.
** ''Literature/MalibuRising'' is directly about Mick's kids from a different marriage and Mick himself appears several times throughout the book, Celia St. James and Don Adler are explicitly mentioned, and the magazines ''Vivant'' and ''Sub Rosa'' are also name dropped. Evelyn Hugo herself is also referenced a few times via her very brief marriage to Mick.

* NoBisexuals: Subverted. Bisexuals very much do exist, and Evelyn is one of them. One of the points of contention in her and Celia's relationship was that Celia couldn't accept the fact that Evelyn was attracted to both men ''and'' women.

* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:Evelyn was diagnosed with malignant breast cancer some time before she had Monique interview her. Since the start of Evelyn's career in Hollywood, she used her body- especially her breasts- to climb her way up stardom and help keep her their. After Monique learns about Evelyn's diagnoses, the irony of the situation isn't lost on her.]]

--> "Two men sleeping together. Married to two women sleeping together. We were four beards."

* EverybodyKnewAlready: Rumors floated around for years regarding Celia and Harry's sexuality. Max Girard outright states that he knew Harry was gay.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: Evelyn's marriage to Mick Riva lasted just one night. She carefully planned the whole thing to play out that way so she would get the press off of her and Celia's backs while not tying herself down to another man.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: This is why Evelyn decides to [[spoiler:commit suicide]] at the end of the book, and also why Monique allows it. By now, Monique knows that [[spoiler:Evelyn might succumb to breast cancer anytime soon, but Evelyn would prefer to die on her own terms before that happens]].

** Evelyn's quickie marriage to Mick Riva was planned by Evelyn in order to disguise her and Celia's relationship; the press was cottoning on to the fact that they were lovers, which would've hurt both of their careers and reputations.
** Evelyn's longest marriage was with Harry Cameron so she could be the beard for his relationship with John Braverman, and Harry could be the beard for her relationship with Celia.
** [[spoiler:Evelyn's final marriage to Robert Jamison was for the express purpose of giving Evelyn legal authority over Celia's estate upon her death]].
* DeathByIrony: Evelyn was [[spoiler:diagnosed with malignant breast cancer some time before had Monique interview her]]. The irony comes in when you remember that [[spoiler:Evelyn's breasts]] were the thing that she used as a weapon all her life, mainly to help her get famous and stay on top in Hollywood.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Evelyn began her actressing career in 50s America, a time period in which roles for POC actors were ''severly'' limited. Even though Evelyn is a light-skinned Cuban, she still had to dye her hair blonde and use a different last name to seem less ethnic and thus get roles traditionally given to white actors instead of being relegated to bit parts.

* DomesticAbuser: Don Adler started abusing Evelyn two months into their marriage. Ruby Reilly, his second wife, confirms that he abused her too.
* DoubleDate: Evelyn and Harry Cameron and Celia and John Braverman often went on double dates, so much that the press nicknames them "America's Favorite Double Daters".
* DrivingQuestion: The primary question lingering throughout the novel is "why did Evelyn choose Monique to write her life story?".

** Harry. He seemed to have started getting it under control, [[spoiler: but once his boyfriend breaks up with him, he gets drunk and wraps his car around a tree, killing himself and his lover.]]
** Connor. After [[spoiler: Harry's death]] she starts to drink and take drugs. This is the final reason for Evelyn to move to Spain with her, after not wanting to unroot her previously.

[[caption-width-right:300:Fame and fortune will always claim a victim. Just be sure that victim isn't you.]]

Monique Grant has been wallowing in obscurity ever since she graduated from college. While working for the magazine ''Vivant'' helps pay the bills, it hasn't helped Monique make a name for herself in the journalism industry. It's at this point in her life when she's given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the incredibly private Old Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo is allowing herself to be interviewed in relation to a charity auction she'll be hosting soon. The catch is that Evelyn wants be interviewed by Monique and ''only'' Monique; the former star intends to take her secrets to the grave if Monique declines the offer.

What follows is a story about a life driven by one goal, the lengths to which one woman took to achieve it, and what loved ones she hurt to keep it.

''The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo'' is a 2017 [[HistoricalFiction historical fiction]] novel by Creator/TaylorJenkinsReid. The novel switches perspectives between Monique and Evelyn, being split into seven sections after the first five chapters. Each section is named after the husband Evelyn is married to during that period of her life, detailing where she was at both personally and professionally.

!!This novel provides examples of:

** Daisy Jones in ''Daisy Jones & The Six'' attends a wild party that Evelyn's then ex-third husband, Mick Riva, is hosting. He gets a tiny cameo in which he's smooching a couple underage girls while he himself is at least forty.
** ''Malibu Raising'' is directly about Mick's kids from a different marriage and Mick himself appears several times throughout the book, Celia St. James and Don Adler are explicitly mentioned, and the magazines ''Vivant'' and ''Sub Rosa'' are also name dropped. Evelyn Hugo herself is also referenced a few times via her very brief marriage to Mick.
** ''Carrie Soto Is Back'' has a character mention Mick and one of his children.