Evelyn Hugo

Evelyn Hugo is the main narrator and eponymous character of the 2017 novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a faux-memoir novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Evelyn is a fictional Oscar-winning actress, who is a mix of bombshells from the Golden Age of Hollywood, including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Sharon Tate, and many others. In the evening of her life, she mysteriously taps a little-known reporter to record her long-sought-after memoir.

Evelyn is revealed to be a bi woman who had a long-standing relationship with another starlet. While she has no hesitation using the label for her sexuality or defending it when it’s questioned, due to the Hays Code in place during the pre-Stonewall years in Hollywood, Evelyn was forced to keep her orientation a secret.

This memoir takes a deep dive into what that type of experience must have been like for an actress on the rise and for one who also had to “pass” as she was a woman of color.

While Evelyn is an excellent actress and a shrewd businesswoman, she can sometimes be reckless or cruel to the people around her. But overall, the novel paints a nuanced picture of a queer person of color and what her time would have been like rising in the old studio system.