The Big Reveal
Fair warning, this one is full of spoilers. If you have not read the book, go watch my spoiler free review first.
Here is the short version. Evelyn’s true love was never a husband. It was her costar Celia St. James. The man who died beside her best friend Harry was Monique’s father. And when Evelyn finishes her story, she says good-bye, and she dies on her own terms. Let’s walk through how the book gets there.
The Setup
In twenty seventeen, Evelyn Hugo, a legendary actress, asks for a young writer named Monique Grant by name. Evelyn does not want to talk about her gowns. She wants Monique to write her life story and publish it after she has died.
Over a handful of days, Evelyn tells it chronologically, one marriage at a time. And she keeps refusing to say why she chose Monique. Next question, she says. The promise is that every answer will come, but only when she is ready.
The Seven Husbands
Here are the husbands in order. Ernie Diaz, the grip who takes her to Hollywood when she is still a teenager. Don Adler, the movie star who hits her. Mick Riva, a singer, in a quick Vegas elopement. Rex North, her costar, in a marriage built purely for publicity.
Then Harry Cameron, the producer who made her. Max Girard, the director who loves the idea of her. And finally Robert Jamison, who is Celia’s brother. Seven marriages, and not one of them is the love story at the center.
Celia
Celia St. James plays Beth in Little Women, the movie that wins her a first Oscar. At first Evelyn sees her as a rival. Then, over milkshakes and long rehearsals, they fall in love.
But they are in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and two women together would have ended both careers. So Evelyn does what she always does. She protects the image. Everything she does for the next thirty years, including most of those marriages, is about keeping Celia safe and herself famous.
The Marriages As Cover
Look at the marriages with that in mind. Mick Riva is a stunt, so the gossip papers stop whispering about Evelyn and Celia. Rex North is a business deal that makes her rich.
And Harry? Harry is gay, and he is in love with Celia’s husband, John Braverman. Celia’s marriage is a cover too. So the four of them live as two married couples, the double dates in all the tabloids, and no one is heterosexual. Evelyn and Harry even have a daughter together, Connor, partly so that no one asks questions.
Losing Celia
Celia leaves Evelyn twice. The first time is because Evelyn sleeps with Mick to protect them both. The second is after Evelyn films a sex scene in Three A.M. with her ex husband and never warns Celia.
Evelyn’s own words to Monique sum it up. She lost Celia, she says, because she cared about being famous as much as she cared about her. She uses her body to get what she wants, and she never stops, even when it hurts the person she loves.
The Car Crash
The twist comes in nineteen eighty nine. Evelyn wants the whole family to move to Spain, and Harry refuses, because he has just fallen in love with a man who works on a movie lot. That night, Evelyn’s driver turns onto Harry’s street and finds a crashed sedan against a tree.
Harry is behind the wheel and badly hurt, and he has been drinking. In the passenger seat, a man is dead. Evelyn realizes that if people find out, Harry goes to prison and her daughter learns her father killed someone.
The Cover Up
So Evelyn does something unforgivable. She and her young driver pull Harry out, then put the dead man behind the wheel instead. She wipes the steering wheel clean, and they take Harry to the hospital.
Harry dies an hour later. The driver, a hopeful actor named Nick, calls the next morning, and what he asks for is to be made famous. Evelyn gives him a start, and the whole thing stays buried for almost thirty years.
James Grant
Near the end, Evelyn tells Monique the name of the dead man. James Grant. He was the man Harry had fallen in love with. He was also Monique’s father.
Monique was seven when he died, and her whole life she believed he had been driving drunk. Evelyn took that away from her and then let her carry it for decades. That is the reveal, and it reframes every conversation they have had.
Why Monique
Now we get the answer to the question Evelyn kept dodging. She did not choose Monique at random, and she did not choose her only for the story. She tracked her down because she had a letter.
It is a letter James wrote to Harry, found in Harry’s pocket the night he died. In it, he says he loves Harry, but he will never leave his wife and daughter. Evelyn kept it for nearly three decades and wanted Monique to know how loved she was.
The Right To Die Piece
Remember the article that got Monique noticed? Early in the book, she is praised for a piece about people with terminal illness who want to die with dignity. It seems like background, but it is the reason Evelyn trusts her.
Evelyn read it and decided Monique understood the need for mercy, even when mercy is hard to accept. That is why, at the end, Evelyn can trust Monique with her story and her death.
Monique’s Anger
Monique is furious, and the book lets her be. She pushes Evelyn onto the sofa and says she is glad there is no one left alive to love her. She calls her selfish. She says Evelyn is making her listen so that she can be forgiven.
Evelyn does not defend herself. She says no one is simply a victim or a victor. She also says that if Monique wants the story, she can burn all the recordings right now. Monique does not move.
The Last Day
Evelyn has breast cancer, the same disease that killed her daughter. On the last day, she gives her housekeeper Grace and her husband a week in Costa Rica and sends her home early. At the magazine photo shoot, Evelyn is glowing.
Monique realizes what Evelyn plans. She stands on a subway platform, torn, then decides that stopping her would betray the trust Evelyn placed in her. The obituary later reports an accidental overdose, and says the cancer is not confirmed.
Evelyn And Me
After Evelyn’s death, Monique publishes a magazine piece called Evelyn and Me. In it she says that Evelyn was bisexual and spent most of her life madly in love with Celia St. James, and that being visible was her greatest political act.
She explains the title too. Evelyn once told her the husbands were just husbands, and that once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in her wife.
Where Everyone Ends Up
By the end, everyone is gone. John dies of a heart attack in nineteen eighty. Harry dies in the crash in nineteen eighty nine. Celia dies of emphysema in two thousand, in Evelyn’s arms, on the coast of Spain. Harry and Celia are both buried at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles. Robert follows, and then Connor, who dies of breast cancer in her early forties.
Monique Rebuilds
Monique, meanwhile, rebuilds. David returns the coffee table, her marriage is over, and she writes the book. She decides, for now, not to tell her mother what she knows about her father, and she may never. She also tells us she will forgive Evelyn one day.
What Was Set Up Earlier
The clues are all in the first chapters. Monique’s father was a still photographer on movie sets, and her mother says he never knew anyone famous. Evelyn tells Monique she is going to change her mind about her very soon.
Evelyn also says early on that she can be sorry without regretting, and that by the end Monique will have no questions left. On a second read, you notice how carefully every thread was planted.
What It Means
The ending is about what we do to protect the people we love. Evelyn lies, manipulates, and covers up a death, and she says she would do it all again. The book does not let her off the hook, and it does not condemn her either.
It is also about being seen. Evelyn spent her life as a character other people wrote. In the end she writes herself, in a book that says plainly that she was bisexual and that Celia was the love of her life.
My Verdict On The Ending
My honest take is that the ending is both the best and the shakiest part of the book. Celia is the emotional core, and the last chapters with her in Spain are beautiful. The little wedding, with hair ties for rings, is the most romantic scene in the novel for me. Celia’s death scene is quiet, and it hurts.
The James Grant reveal is bolder, and it asks a lot from coincidence. But it makes the title mean something, and Evelyn’s last line about her wife is perfect.
Over To You
If you read it, tell me in the comments whether you forgive her. I would love to know where you land. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.
