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Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Historical Fiction (2013)When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant. Before long, Zelda has fallen for him, even though Scott isn't wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. When he sells his first novel, she optimistically boards a train to New York, to marry him and take the rest as it comes.
What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Each place they go becomes a playground—New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.
Everything seems new and possible, but not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it.
What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Each place they go becomes a playground—New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.
Everything seems new and possible, but not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it.
375 pages, Hardcover
First published April 9, 2013
2734 people are currently reading
70416 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,689 reviews
March 8, 2013
Dear Reader,
Many thanks for your interest in Z. You might appreciate knowing a little bit more about what went into the creation of the novel, and why I chose to write fiction about people whose lives are so thoroughly documented in biographies.
Z is fiction, but my research was extensive and thorough, and in telling the story I've stayed very close to the established facts. My personal approach to biographical fiction is to unearth and then represent the truth, even when it contradicts what people think they know about the characters involved. Much of what we think we know about the Fitzgeralds comes from unreliable sources or has been spun into half-true myth. My mission was to set the record straight.
Popular culture (Midnight in Paris, for one example) has made Zelda into a caricature, reduced her to being only an edgy flapper, or only an unstable, jealous spouse, or only a pathetic, "insane" drain of her husband's creativity and life. She was edgy--sometimes. She was jealous--sometimes. She was unstable--sometimes. But in the same way that none of us can be or should be defined by one aspect of our lives, Zelda cannot be defined so simply either.
Z is the story of a complex and fascinating woman who was so much more than I knew when I began researching her life. She was exceptional in so many ways, but she was also human.
Best wishes,
Therese Anne Fowler
Many thanks for your interest in Z. You might appreciate knowing a little bit more about what went into the creation of the novel, and why I chose to write fiction about people whose lives are so thoroughly documented in biographies.
Z is fiction, but my research was extensive and thorough, and in telling the story I've stayed very close to the established facts. My personal approach to biographical fiction is to unearth and then represent the truth, even when it contradicts what people think they know about the characters involved. Much of what we think we know about the Fitzgeralds comes from unreliable sources or has been spun into half-true myth. My mission was to set the record straight.
Popular culture (Midnight in Paris, for one example) has made Zelda into a caricature, reduced her to being only an edgy flapper, or only an unstable, jealous spouse, or only a pathetic, "insane" drain of her husband's creativity and life. She was edgy--sometimes. She was jealous--sometimes. She was unstable--sometimes. But in the same way that none of us can be or should be defined by one aspect of our lives, Zelda cannot be defined so simply either.
Z is the story of a complex and fascinating woman who was so much more than I knew when I began researching her life. She was exceptional in so many ways, but she was also human.
Best wishes,
Therese Anne Fowler
January 10, 2014
This is Zelda Lite. I think this novel will be absolute perfection for readers who just want a quick romp through the years of Zelda's life that are most relevant to her role as the wife of a famous and very troubled writer. There's almost nothing in the book about her life before she met Scott, and only a brief Afterword covering the years from when Scott died in 1940 until her death in 1948.
What you get here is a look at the years when the Fitzgeralds were the golden couple, and Zelda was the Jazz Age Priestess. These years were followed by the long decline of their relationship, exacerbated by their peripatetic lifestyle, Scott's worsening alcoholism, and Zelda's troubles with what may or may not have been mental illness.
Fowler takes us back in time and lets us hang out with these people and see the challenges and temptations they faced as products of their era. The author has a real flair for dialogue, and a wonderful ability to create a sense of time and place using just the right amount of period detail. If you love historical fiction that never gets boring, you're going to love this novel.
Just prior to receiving this novel, I read two biographies of Zelda. If you've read much nonfiction about her, you may find yourself puzzling over why certain key people and events were barely mentioned or entirely left out of this novel.
You may also find, as I did, that the way Fowler portrays Zelda does not match your interpretation of her personality. This was especially noticeable for me because the novel is written in the first person, using Zelda's voice. I would have preferred a third-person narrative, which might have allowed us to get closer to some of the other characters. On the whole, though, I found that my previous reading about Zelda enhanced my enjoyment of the novel. I was able to fill in the gaps with what I gleaned from nonfiction accounts.
I'm inclined to believe that both Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald were even more diabolical in their treatment of Zelda than is shown in this novel. Their badgering and cruelty were huge factors contributing to her nervousness and emotional instability, as well as to the general perception that she was "crazy." This opinion comes largely from my reading of Sally Cline's excellent work, Zelda Fitzgerald Her Voice in Paradise. I have not yet read any biographies of Scott. My understanding is that his biographers portray him in a much more favorable and sympathetic light.
If anything I've said here seems uncomplimentary, that's certainly not my intent. Therese Fowler's careful research is evident on every page, and her writing is truly a pleasure to read. The only readers who might be disappointed are those looking for greater detail and a broader scope. This novel is a delightful introduction to Zelda and an invitation to learn more about her life.
What you get here is a look at the years when the Fitzgeralds were the golden couple, and Zelda was the Jazz Age Priestess. These years were followed by the long decline of their relationship, exacerbated by their peripatetic lifestyle, Scott's worsening alcoholism, and Zelda's troubles with what may or may not have been mental illness.
Fowler takes us back in time and lets us hang out with these people and see the challenges and temptations they faced as products of their era. The author has a real flair for dialogue, and a wonderful ability to create a sense of time and place using just the right amount of period detail. If you love historical fiction that never gets boring, you're going to love this novel.
Just prior to receiving this novel, I read two biographies of Zelda. If you've read much nonfiction about her, you may find yourself puzzling over why certain key people and events were barely mentioned or entirely left out of this novel.
You may also find, as I did, that the way Fowler portrays Zelda does not match your interpretation of her personality. This was especially noticeable for me because the novel is written in the first person, using Zelda's voice. I would have preferred a third-person narrative, which might have allowed us to get closer to some of the other characters. On the whole, though, I found that my previous reading about Zelda enhanced my enjoyment of the novel. I was able to fill in the gaps with what I gleaned from nonfiction accounts.
I'm inclined to believe that both Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald were even more diabolical in their treatment of Zelda than is shown in this novel. Their badgering and cruelty were huge factors contributing to her nervousness and emotional instability, as well as to the general perception that she was "crazy." This opinion comes largely from my reading of Sally Cline's excellent work, Zelda Fitzgerald Her Voice in Paradise. I have not yet read any biographies of Scott. My understanding is that his biographers portray him in a much more favorable and sympathetic light.
If anything I've said here seems uncomplimentary, that's certainly not my intent. Therese Fowler's careful research is evident on every page, and her writing is truly a pleasure to read. The only readers who might be disappointed are those looking for greater detail and a broader scope. This novel is a delightful introduction to Zelda and an invitation to learn more about her life.
August 17, 2016
A biographer doesn’t need to possess the same level of intelligence, eloquence, wisdom or imaginative reach as her subject because biography is essentially telling, not showing. A novelist, on the other hand, cannot convincingly create a character who is more intelligent, eloquent, wise or more imaginatively complex than she herself is because there will come times when she has to prove it. These make-or-break moments will often arrive in the writing of dialogue.
The author states that “much of what we think we know about the Fitzgeralds comes from unreliable sources or has been spun into half-true myth. My mission was to set the record straight.” But then she proceeds to do exactly what she’s complaining about and takes the myth making to a whole new level. And of course she’s more of an unreliable source than the people she’s referring to. I would argue her statement that the popular perception of Zelda has reduced her “to being only an edgy flapper, or only an unstable, jealous spouse, or only a pathetic, "insane" drain of her husband's creativity and life” is wholly unfounded. The popular perception of Zelda is much more complex and fully formed than that. And yet this is the treatise Fowler seeks to disprove in this novel. To do this she sanitises Zelda, whitewashes all her excesses, dumbs her down. She makes her reasonable, domesticated, conventionally likeable and the victim of the insensitivity of others. She exaggerates her talent, as an artist, a mother and a woman which, ironically involves trivialising her brilliance. She gives us conversations that never happened – thus revealing herself as a completely unreliable source. And, like I said, there’s a big problem when an author tries to put words into the mouths of people who were much more brilliant, eloquent and intelligent than she herself is. The belittling process begins here. This is how Zelda herself writes Scott’s dialogue in her own novel Save Me the Waltz - "If you would stop dumping ash trays before the company has got well out of the house we would be happier.” That’s sophisticated dialogue – there’s psychology and wit in it. You can imagine it as something Scott actually said.
And this is how Fowler writes Scott’s dialogue – “If not for my blood, my sweat and my – my- determination, you’d be nobody special, just another aging debutante wasting away the years somewhere in Alabama. It’s my life that made yours worthwhile! And yet all I get is selfish ingratitude.” The less said about that the better. Poor Scott gets these misogynist clichés dumped on him throughout the novel, like the literary equivalent of canned boo’s. Scott was eloquent after all – no one would deny him that. It’s impossible to imagine him capable of the crassness Fowler attributes to him in every argument he has with Zelda.
Perhaps I’m simply taking this novel too seriously. Really, it’s little more than fluffy light entertainment. And perhaps I wouldn’t have taken it so seriously had I not read and then taken issue with the author’s declaration of intent in which she clearly aspires to creating a historical document. Her mission is “to set the record straight.”
Most pointedly of all, the author gets round the very tricky problem of depicting Zelda’s madness by ignoring it. The irony is, were Zelda capable of writing such a rational grounded account of her own life she wouldn’t have been Zelda; she would have been someone else. She completely leaves out some of Zelda’s most infamous stunts – like trying to wrestle the wheel from Scott and drive the car over a cliff with her young daughter in the back seat. You can’t come up with a reasonable explanation for that so she ignores it.
She also greatly exaggerates Zelda’s talent as a writer. "The swing creaks on Austin's porch, a luminous beetle swings ferociously over the clematis, insects swarm to the golden holocaust of the hall light. Shadows brush the Southern night like heavy, impregnated mops soaking its oblivion back to the black heat whence it evolved. Melancholic moon-vines trail dark, absorbent pads over the string trellises.” This excerpt from Zelda’s Save Me the Waltz is like something from a teenage self-published author. Scott has taken a lot of flak from feminists for his reluctance to have this book published. No doubt he was irritated she was encroaching on his territory – that’s just human nature - but perhaps he also wanted to save her from the savagery of criticism he assumed would follow? Zelda could write some fantastic one liners – “I’m much too proud to care – pride keeps me from feeling half the things I ought to feel.” - and was capable of insights of absolute brilliance but that doesn’t make her a novelist.
Of course another huge problem is Scott wrote about Zelda so much that there are many instances when Fowler is describing scenes he has written beautifully into his books and needless to say she never comes out of these comparisons well. Zelda herself wrote some of these scenes into Save Me the Waltz and even she did a better job. So what we have here is a massive act of hubris on the part of the author. To write a convincing novel about Scott and Zelda you’d have to be as artistically gifted as they were.
Essentially the author uses simplistic contemporary doctrines to further a thesis she had arbitrarily formed before writing the novel. Feminism can be no less guilty than any other ism of seeing only what it wants to see in order to create a simplistic judgemental doctrine. Imagine if the tables were turned and someone wrote a novel positing the idea that Virginia Woolf stifled Leonard’s gifts as an artist. Or that he was responsible for Virginia’s madness. Blame isn’t as simplistically apportioned as Fowler would have it. Scott, by all accounts, was reckless, irresponsible, narccissistic, emotionally immature, fatally insecure but these were all traits he shared with Zelda. They were soulmates in the most classic sense.
.
The ultimate irony is Fowler thinks she’s doing Zelda some kind of favour by writing this book. This is a daytime TV Zelda, a Zelda whitewashed into middle class respectability, stripped of her dark sorcery. If you want to read about the real Zelda Nancy Milford’s heartbreaking biography is excellent - Zelda.
The author states that “much of what we think we know about the Fitzgeralds comes from unreliable sources or has been spun into half-true myth. My mission was to set the record straight.” But then she proceeds to do exactly what she’s complaining about and takes the myth making to a whole new level. And of course she’s more of an unreliable source than the people she’s referring to. I would argue her statement that the popular perception of Zelda has reduced her “to being only an edgy flapper, or only an unstable, jealous spouse, or only a pathetic, "insane" drain of her husband's creativity and life” is wholly unfounded. The popular perception of Zelda is much more complex and fully formed than that. And yet this is the treatise Fowler seeks to disprove in this novel. To do this she sanitises Zelda, whitewashes all her excesses, dumbs her down. She makes her reasonable, domesticated, conventionally likeable and the victim of the insensitivity of others. She exaggerates her talent, as an artist, a mother and a woman which, ironically involves trivialising her brilliance. She gives us conversations that never happened – thus revealing herself as a completely unreliable source. And, like I said, there’s a big problem when an author tries to put words into the mouths of people who were much more brilliant, eloquent and intelligent than she herself is. The belittling process begins here. This is how Zelda herself writes Scott’s dialogue in her own novel Save Me the Waltz - "If you would stop dumping ash trays before the company has got well out of the house we would be happier.” That’s sophisticated dialogue – there’s psychology and wit in it. You can imagine it as something Scott actually said.
And this is how Fowler writes Scott’s dialogue – “If not for my blood, my sweat and my – my- determination, you’d be nobody special, just another aging debutante wasting away the years somewhere in Alabama. It’s my life that made yours worthwhile! And yet all I get is selfish ingratitude.” The less said about that the better. Poor Scott gets these misogynist clichés dumped on him throughout the novel, like the literary equivalent of canned boo’s. Scott was eloquent after all – no one would deny him that. It’s impossible to imagine him capable of the crassness Fowler attributes to him in every argument he has with Zelda.
Perhaps I’m simply taking this novel too seriously. Really, it’s little more than fluffy light entertainment. And perhaps I wouldn’t have taken it so seriously had I not read and then taken issue with the author’s declaration of intent in which she clearly aspires to creating a historical document. Her mission is “to set the record straight.”
Most pointedly of all, the author gets round the very tricky problem of depicting Zelda’s madness by ignoring it. The irony is, were Zelda capable of writing such a rational grounded account of her own life she wouldn’t have been Zelda; she would have been someone else. She completely leaves out some of Zelda’s most infamous stunts – like trying to wrestle the wheel from Scott and drive the car over a cliff with her young daughter in the back seat. You can’t come up with a reasonable explanation for that so she ignores it.
She also greatly exaggerates Zelda’s talent as a writer. "The swing creaks on Austin's porch, a luminous beetle swings ferociously over the clematis, insects swarm to the golden holocaust of the hall light. Shadows brush the Southern night like heavy, impregnated mops soaking its oblivion back to the black heat whence it evolved. Melancholic moon-vines trail dark, absorbent pads over the string trellises.” This excerpt from Zelda’s Save Me the Waltz is like something from a teenage self-published author. Scott has taken a lot of flak from feminists for his reluctance to have this book published. No doubt he was irritated she was encroaching on his territory – that’s just human nature - but perhaps he also wanted to save her from the savagery of criticism he assumed would follow? Zelda could write some fantastic one liners – “I’m much too proud to care – pride keeps me from feeling half the things I ought to feel.” - and was capable of insights of absolute brilliance but that doesn’t make her a novelist.
Of course another huge problem is Scott wrote about Zelda so much that there are many instances when Fowler is describing scenes he has written beautifully into his books and needless to say she never comes out of these comparisons well. Zelda herself wrote some of these scenes into Save Me the Waltz and even she did a better job. So what we have here is a massive act of hubris on the part of the author. To write a convincing novel about Scott and Zelda you’d have to be as artistically gifted as they were.
Essentially the author uses simplistic contemporary doctrines to further a thesis she had arbitrarily formed before writing the novel. Feminism can be no less guilty than any other ism of seeing only what it wants to see in order to create a simplistic judgemental doctrine. Imagine if the tables were turned and someone wrote a novel positing the idea that Virginia Woolf stifled Leonard’s gifts as an artist. Or that he was responsible for Virginia’s madness. Blame isn’t as simplistically apportioned as Fowler would have it. Scott, by all accounts, was reckless, irresponsible, narccissistic, emotionally immature, fatally insecure but these were all traits he shared with Zelda. They were soulmates in the most classic sense.
.
The ultimate irony is Fowler thinks she’s doing Zelda some kind of favour by writing this book. This is a daytime TV Zelda, a Zelda whitewashed into middle class respectability, stripped of her dark sorcery. If you want to read about the real Zelda Nancy Milford’s heartbreaking biography is excellent - Zelda.
January 18, 2022
Z: A Life of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler is a fictionalised account of the life and times of Zelda Fitzgerald (Format, Audiobook)
Note - I’ve included quite a lot of historical detail in this review (I’ve now realised!) so beware, it might be a bit spoiler-ish if you aren’t acquainted with the life of the Fitzgeralds.
Zelda Sayre grew up in Montgomery Alabama the youngest daughter of Judge Anthony and Minerva Sayre. An old family, well connected and important to the town. As a child and teenager she was a vivacious and daring tomboy who pushed boundaries to the limit and raised many an eyebrow. in her mid and late teens she had no shortage of male admirers. One of them was a handsome and ambitious young soldier and wannabe writer, Scott Fitzgerald.
They fall in love and by 1920 they are engaged and soon after, married. Zelda, at this point, is 20.
On moving to New York, life is a round of parties and heavy drinking, a glitzy, reckless time among the rich and arty set. With the publication of This Side of Paradise, Scott’s wildly successful first novel, the couple are much sought after, the embodiment of fashion, progressive thinking and irresponsibility.
Zelda becomes one of the most iconic ‘flappers’ of the period, with her bobbed hair, short dresses and love of jazz ............ her unconventional outlook and ‘devil may care’ attitude adds greatly to the Fitzgerald’s image. Along with Scott she meets some of the most influential writers, artists and thinkers of the day.
Scott Fitzgerald is presented as totally driven by his writing - a perfectionist who is also riddled with uncertainty about his ability and standing as a novelist. He is described as vein and self centred, a dreamer with his head in the clouds. Making money (mostly by writing short stories for magazines) to support his more serious writing is a constant worry/ pressure. This, on top of Scott’s other fears and frustrations make it easy to understand cynicism that underpins the idealism of The Great Gatsby.
After the birth of Scottie their daughter, Zelda tends house and props up Scott and his ego. But without a real support network, as they constantly move around Europe (Paris, The Riviera, Rome etc) all at Scott’s whim, things get difficult. Illness, infidelity, alcohol abuse and the underlying fragile state of minds of both Zelda and Scott mean that giant cracks begin to appear in their relationship. Oh, and Scott’s obsession with, and Zelda hatred of, Ernest Hemingway over the years, doesn’t help!
Zelda’s voice, state of mind and outlook, as these events unfold is to a certain extent guessed at, but still fascinating.
Throughout much of this book it seems that Zelda is a victim of the times she lives in. She constantly fights against what is widely accepted as a woman’s place in the world. Her artistic endeavours always take second place to Scott’s. She is an accomplished dancer and trains hard to join a renowned dance company - but she’s discouraged by Scott for the sake of the family. She’s a talented artist who eventually ‘shows’ her work - but it’s considered little more than the hobby of a famous writer’s wife. She is also a good writer and several of her stories are published in top magazines - but these are mostly printed under her husband’s name! The logic is that he has the ‘name’ and commands the fee.
These knock backs affect Zelda more and more as the years pass. Even when struggling with mental illness the solution is often thought to be spending more time, quietly tending her family and avoiding the upset that goes with ‘a rise in ambition’.
These were also times when mental illness was often misdiagnosed. Was her schizophrenia actually extreme depression, exacerbated by drink and prescription drugs?
Of course, this is a work of fiction based on the historical framework of fact, so it’s just another perspective to add to the many learned works out there.
The one thing that shines through though, and seems to be acknowledged by most writers on the subject, is that the short lives of Zelda and Scott were inextricably bound together and that their love, notwithstanding their frailties, was vey deep.
Z: A Life of Zelda Fitzgerald is an evocative, well researched imagining of a colourful life, and this audiobook is beautifully and movingly read by Jenna Lamia.
Note - I’ve included quite a lot of historical detail in this review (I’ve now realised!) so beware, it might be a bit spoiler-ish if you aren’t acquainted with the life of the Fitzgeralds.
Zelda Sayre grew up in Montgomery Alabama the youngest daughter of Judge Anthony and Minerva Sayre. An old family, well connected and important to the town. As a child and teenager she was a vivacious and daring tomboy who pushed boundaries to the limit and raised many an eyebrow. in her mid and late teens she had no shortage of male admirers. One of them was a handsome and ambitious young soldier and wannabe writer, Scott Fitzgerald.
They fall in love and by 1920 they are engaged and soon after, married. Zelda, at this point, is 20.
On moving to New York, life is a round of parties and heavy drinking, a glitzy, reckless time among the rich and arty set. With the publication of This Side of Paradise, Scott’s wildly successful first novel, the couple are much sought after, the embodiment of fashion, progressive thinking and irresponsibility.
Zelda becomes one of the most iconic ‘flappers’ of the period, with her bobbed hair, short dresses and love of jazz ............ her unconventional outlook and ‘devil may care’ attitude adds greatly to the Fitzgerald’s image. Along with Scott she meets some of the most influential writers, artists and thinkers of the day.
Scott Fitzgerald is presented as totally driven by his writing - a perfectionist who is also riddled with uncertainty about his ability and standing as a novelist. He is described as vein and self centred, a dreamer with his head in the clouds. Making money (mostly by writing short stories for magazines) to support his more serious writing is a constant worry/ pressure. This, on top of Scott’s other fears and frustrations make it easy to understand cynicism that underpins the idealism of The Great Gatsby.
After the birth of Scottie their daughter, Zelda tends house and props up Scott and his ego. But without a real support network, as they constantly move around Europe (Paris, The Riviera, Rome etc) all at Scott’s whim, things get difficult. Illness, infidelity, alcohol abuse and the underlying fragile state of minds of both Zelda and Scott mean that giant cracks begin to appear in their relationship. Oh, and Scott’s obsession with, and Zelda hatred of, Ernest Hemingway over the years, doesn’t help!
Zelda’s voice, state of mind and outlook, as these events unfold is to a certain extent guessed at, but still fascinating.
Throughout much of this book it seems that Zelda is a victim of the times she lives in. She constantly fights against what is widely accepted as a woman’s place in the world. Her artistic endeavours always take second place to Scott’s. She is an accomplished dancer and trains hard to join a renowned dance company - but she’s discouraged by Scott for the sake of the family. She’s a talented artist who eventually ‘shows’ her work - but it’s considered little more than the hobby of a famous writer’s wife. She is also a good writer and several of her stories are published in top magazines - but these are mostly printed under her husband’s name! The logic is that he has the ‘name’ and commands the fee.
These knock backs affect Zelda more and more as the years pass. Even when struggling with mental illness the solution is often thought to be spending more time, quietly tending her family and avoiding the upset that goes with ‘a rise in ambition’.
These were also times when mental illness was often misdiagnosed. Was her schizophrenia actually extreme depression, exacerbated by drink and prescription drugs?
Of course, this is a work of fiction based on the historical framework of fact, so it’s just another perspective to add to the many learned works out there.
The one thing that shines through though, and seems to be acknowledged by most writers on the subject, is that the short lives of Zelda and Scott were inextricably bound together and that their love, notwithstanding their frailties, was vey deep.
Z: A Life of Zelda Fitzgerald is an evocative, well researched imagining of a colourful life, and this audiobook is beautifully and movingly read by Jenna Lamia.
March 27, 2013
Flat-out terrible. Full of anachronisms and totally wrong speech patterns, and even worse, Scott and Zelda don't sound like themselves at all, and the author wrote pale unconvincing imitations of their letters when volumes of them are available! So disappointing. Not recommended at all.
SAMPLE DIALOGUE: "I went to the window. 'I never woulda thought it. Not like this.' I turned back toward him. 'You're sorta impressive.'"
SAMPLE DIALOGUE: "I went to the window. 'I never woulda thought it. Not like this.' I turned back toward him. 'You're sorta impressive.'"
April 7, 2013
"Marry me, Zelda. We'll make it all up as we go."
"Have another glass of champagne and tell me more."
"You'll make it worth my while, right?"
That's it: my whole review. I'll be over here crying in the corner if you need me.
And just in case there was anyone who thought my heart wasn't sufficiently broken this year, Hadley Hemingway showed up here again to make sure it stayed broken. Stop whatever you're doing and go read this, then watch Midnight in Paris then embarrass yourself over twitter by picking a fight with a very confused Tom Hiddleston.
Maybe not the last part.
"Have another glass of champagne and tell me more."
"You'll make it worth my while, right?"
That's it: my whole review. I'll be over here crying in the corner if you need me.
And just in case there was anyone who thought my heart wasn't sufficiently broken this year, Hadley Hemingway showed up here again to make sure it stayed broken. Stop whatever you're doing and go read this, then watch Midnight in Paris then embarrass yourself over twitter by picking a fight with a very confused Tom Hiddleston.
Maybe not the last part.
February 27, 2017
I read this book for my A-Z book title challenge.
Wow! I really enjoyed this book! I learned so much about the Fitzgeralds and I originally knew very little. Zelda was a fascinating women with bipolar disorder, but most of the book was before her hospitalizations. All I knew about her before the book was that she was married to Scott and had mental health troubles and was in and out of hospitals. This book showed so much more than that. Majority of her life, she was very healthy and active. She was always trying to push the roles of women and change the expectations that society had.
It was a very fascinating book that I learned a lot from. I highly suggest everyone read this book :)
Thank you to all my goodreads' friends that suggested this book to me for my A-Z challenge!
Wow! I really enjoyed this book! I learned so much about the Fitzgeralds and I originally knew very little. Zelda was a fascinating women with bipolar disorder, but most of the book was before her hospitalizations. All I knew about her before the book was that she was married to Scott and had mental health troubles and was in and out of hospitals. This book showed so much more than that. Majority of her life, she was very healthy and active. She was always trying to push the roles of women and change the expectations that society had.
It was a very fascinating book that I learned a lot from. I highly suggest everyone read this book :)
Thank you to all my goodreads' friends that suggested this book to me for my A-Z challenge!
May 23, 2022
Within historical fiction, my favorite sub-genre is biographical fiction. Thus, I was looking forward to reading this book.
It certainly brings two fascinating characters: Zelda Sayre, who was a reckless Southern belle, and a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Their love was very buoyant. After his successful first publication, they became the toast of the high society. Along the way, they became the emblems of the Jazz Age. But their marriage was very turbulent, which was due to many factors. Did Zelda make Scott’s problems worse? Or did he drive her to madness? They probably weren’t right for each other. The toxicity of the relationship didn’t serve either one well.
This story is vividly presented. However, I found the pace slow.
It certainly brings two fascinating characters: Zelda Sayre, who was a reckless Southern belle, and a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Their love was very buoyant. After his successful first publication, they became the toast of the high society. Along the way, they became the emblems of the Jazz Age. But their marriage was very turbulent, which was due to many factors. Did Zelda make Scott’s problems worse? Or did he drive her to madness? They probably weren’t right for each other. The toxicity of the relationship didn’t serve either one well.
This story is vividly presented. However, I found the pace slow.
September 3, 2014
The Jazz Age was a particularly hedonistic time and few who lived it, came through it unscathed. Zelda and F Scott Fitzgerald certainly did not escape scot-free but after reading this book, my sympathies lie much more with Zelda. In all honesty, I came away from finishing this book feeling immensely sad for Zelda: even given her faults, you can't say she wasn't trying to have a life; a life away from all the booze, the fun, the people. If she'd left Scott, the law denoted that she would lose her daughter so she stayed but immersed herself in her art and her ballet. It also saddens me how many difficult women in those years found themselves in mental institutions, subjected to all manner of treatments. Remember Frances Farmer; the actress institutionalised at a film studio's request and then subjected to a frontal lobotomy? Often, the length of your stay was decided by your psychiatrist and your husband! On a lesser note, this is the third fact/fiction book which mentions Ernest Hemingway and I find his attitude to women in them all is far from attractive. And if I never hear him say something is good and clear and true again, I'll be a happy woman.
I find myself liking Zelda, sad for her life and terribly sad for her unnecessary death. I wonder what woman she might have been if born into a time when the law was kinder and more just to women and she'd had a dependable husband. I'm a bit jealous of Therese Anne Fowler that she had got to peruse documents between Zelda and Fitzgerald; I'd love to have seen the real thing. An exemplary effort on Fowler's behalf 4.5★
December 6, 2012
I hate to say it, but I didn't like this book. I started out with such high hopes: I love Zelda Fitzgerald and I was excited to read a book about her! But the Zelda I knew and loved was not in this book. My Zelda was fiery, charming, tempestuous, spoiled, and selfish. She was mentally ill and her highs were higher than anyone elses'. She was the epitome of The Flapper. This Zelda was a pale imitation of the original, a namby-pamby sentimental girl that the real Zelda would've eaten for breakfast! This Zelda was maternal (I always thought of her as someone who loved her daughter, but only wanted her around when it was convenient), soft, and only rejected Fitzgerald's proposal of marriage because she worried he would never fulfill his potential (my understanding of it was that she was young, enjoyed the attention of all her suitors, and wanted someone with better prospects than this upstart Yank). The crazier things she did - throwing herself down a flight of stairs when Scott flirted outrageously with Isadora Duncan, handing her panties to an author as a going away present - seem like something done by an alternate personality, not just someone with alleged Bipolar Disorder. I was disappointed - I wanted my crazy, demanding, Valentine of a Zelda, not this whitewashed version. For all her flaws, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was a complete original, a fabulous woman with a tragic ending, a Flapper who lived better and worse than anyone else, and that is the woman I wanted to read about.
November 1, 2019
Audiobook... read by Jenna Lamia
Gin, martinis, parties, cigarettes,
Hemingway... (Fitzgeralds buddy)...
drunken nights, enchanting history of the ‘Jazz Age’
marriage quarrels, maids, cooks, governesses,
art, essays, stories, music, little, sleep between activities, writing, painting, interviews,
Fancy hotels and restaurants,
romance, travel, dance lessons, reconciliation, more arguing, sipping brandy, jealousy, public commodities,
entertainment business, ambitions, jokes, men, women, fixation on sensuality, ballet, plies, Paris, ‘The Great Gatsby’, pressures,
fascinating thoughts about writing and writers,
assumptions were rampant, secrets, heavy alcohol consumption,
developing feminist,
physical and mental illness,
tumultuous times, tragedy,
astonishing epic journey!!!
and
GREAT SADNESS!
I was absolutely totally hooked - literally swept away with the entire storytelling experience.
I loved the audiobook!!
This is the second book I’ve read by Therese Anne Fowler...
I want more!!!! I enjoy Fowler’s writing thoroughly!!!!
“A Good Neighborhood”, still remains in my thoughts!
Becoming a new Fowler fan!!!
Gin, martinis, parties, cigarettes,
Hemingway... (Fitzgeralds buddy)...
drunken nights, enchanting history of the ‘Jazz Age’
marriage quarrels, maids, cooks, governesses,
art, essays, stories, music, little, sleep between activities, writing, painting, interviews,
Fancy hotels and restaurants,
romance, travel, dance lessons, reconciliation, more arguing, sipping brandy, jealousy, public commodities,
entertainment business, ambitions, jokes, men, women, fixation on sensuality, ballet, plies, Paris, ‘The Great Gatsby’, pressures,
fascinating thoughts about writing and writers,
assumptions were rampant, secrets, heavy alcohol consumption,
developing feminist,
physical and mental illness,
tumultuous times, tragedy,
astonishing epic journey!!!
and
GREAT SADNESS!
I was absolutely totally hooked - literally swept away with the entire storytelling experience.
I loved the audiobook!!
This is the second book I’ve read by Therese Anne Fowler...
I want more!!!! I enjoy Fowler’s writing thoroughly!!!!
“A Good Neighborhood”, still remains in my thoughts!
Becoming a new Fowler fan!!!
August 2, 2013
This is well-researched piece of historical fiction which, notwithstanding the good intentions of the author, falls rather flat. It tells the story of Zelda Sayre Fitgerald's life from the time she met her husband Scott in 1918 until his death in 1940, covering their courtship and marriage, their "Jazz Age" antics in New York, their life together in France, Scott's alcoholism and Zelda's mental health problems. Fowler squarely puts herself in the camp of those who take the view that Zelda's breakdowns were chiefly caused by her failure to conform to expected female behaviour and to the repression of her artistic potential by her insecure and abusive husband.
I don't know enough about Zelda Fitzgerald to assess the accuracy her characterisation as a sensitive and intelligent woman unable to achieve her potential because of the repression of women in marriage in particular and society in general. That's a good thing, because I came to the novel without preconceptions or expectations. However, I recognise anachronisms when I see them, and they abound in this work. Further, even though the dialogue is marginally less flat than that in The Paris Wife, Zelda generally sounds less like a real person and more like the author's idea of her.
There was a time when I didn't read historical fiction in which the central characters are real people because I preferred to read a biographer's take on the primary sources than a novelist's reinterpretation of biographical material. Hilary Mantel is the writer who converted me to the idea that this kind of historical fiction could be as or even more compelling than a good biography. Suffice to say that Fowler is not Hilary Mantel. That said, her writing didn't bore me, it wasn't difficult to read and it's made me interested enough in Zelda Fitzgerald to want to read both some of her writing and a biography. And that's a very good thing.
I have my dear friend Jemidar to thank for this book. She knows just what I need to feed my obsession with the Lost Generation.
December 4, 2013
4.5 stars. I was so excited to get my hands on an ARC of this book. I screamed when I opened the envelope and succeeded in getting my husband to run into the room to see if I had been hurt. To say that this book was one of my most anticipated reads of 2013 would be an understatement. Let me just say that I was most definitely not disappointed. This is such a good book about someone that has often been maligned after her untimely death.
When I was in high school, I read a non-fiction book of love letters between Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Even though I don't recall the exact name of the book, I loved the book. I loved Scott and Zelda's love story. I even loved how absolutely complicated their love affair was. You could see that Scott and Zelda really loved each other but that their relationship was not really healthy for either of them. I think they were a fascinating couple so I was very excited to read this book. Told from Zelda's point of view, it quickly became clear how wild their relationship was. They were up and down and each seemed to feed on the others insecurities, fears, and emotions.
I loved that the book was told from the point of view of Zelda. It follows from Zelda and Scott first meeting in Zelda's hometown until the dismal end of their relationship. There is a lot of debate about whether Zelda made Scott's problems worse or if Scott made Zelda's issue worse. This book takes the stand that Scott essentially drove Zelda crazy. He had an incredible ego and seemed to get off on showing how much more successful he was than Zelda (fun fact: some of Zelda's stories were published under Scott's name and he had absolutely no problem taking credit). It's not hard to see why some of the issues she had (it's generally acknowledged that she had some sort of mental illness like bipolar disorder) were greatly magnified when Scott and Zelda were together. I loved Zelda's voice in this book. You really do feel bad for her. When the book opens, she seems like a really fun person; one that you would want to hang out with. You get to see all of Zelda's innermost thoughts and innermost dreams. Fowler truly brings her to life.
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is an amazing portrait of an incredibly fascinating woman. Fowler really makes Zelda jump off of the pages! This book just about has it all. There's incredible detail and a really vivid picture of one of America's greatest literary couples and a great storyline behind it all.
When I was in high school, I read a non-fiction book of love letters between Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Even though I don't recall the exact name of the book, I loved the book. I loved Scott and Zelda's love story. I even loved how absolutely complicated their love affair was. You could see that Scott and Zelda really loved each other but that their relationship was not really healthy for either of them. I think they were a fascinating couple so I was very excited to read this book. Told from Zelda's point of view, it quickly became clear how wild their relationship was. They were up and down and each seemed to feed on the others insecurities, fears, and emotions.
I loved that the book was told from the point of view of Zelda. It follows from Zelda and Scott first meeting in Zelda's hometown until the dismal end of their relationship. There is a lot of debate about whether Zelda made Scott's problems worse or if Scott made Zelda's issue worse. This book takes the stand that Scott essentially drove Zelda crazy. He had an incredible ego and seemed to get off on showing how much more successful he was than Zelda (fun fact: some of Zelda's stories were published under Scott's name and he had absolutely no problem taking credit). It's not hard to see why some of the issues she had (it's generally acknowledged that she had some sort of mental illness like bipolar disorder) were greatly magnified when Scott and Zelda were together. I loved Zelda's voice in this book. You really do feel bad for her. When the book opens, she seems like a really fun person; one that you would want to hang out with. You get to see all of Zelda's innermost thoughts and innermost dreams. Fowler truly brings her to life.
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is an amazing portrait of an incredibly fascinating woman. Fowler really makes Zelda jump off of the pages! This book just about has it all. There's incredible detail and a really vivid picture of one of America's greatest literary couples and a great storyline behind it all.
January 1, 2016
There is much to admire in this offering about Zelda, her life and of course her and Scott's lives. It is always great to read about this time period, all these writing greats, and always I am left wondering how if they were all forever broke, they managed to drink constantly and travel always. Of course it was hard to read of Zelda, her psyche crumbling and diagnosis of schizophrenia, her years in a mental facility.This is a well written book about interesting people who wrote many of the classics that are still revered today. My only little nagging complaint is that this Zelda is not as edgy as she has previously been portrayed. She is a little more sympathetic and a little more pitiful. Will appeal to readers of this time period and the authors that became famous from this group.
January 2, 2016
On Completion:
By the end of the book my heart melted and I did feel empathy for Zelda. For Zelda, but not Scott. If the book is giving you trouble and if what you are looking for is understanding of and empathy for the characters continue to the end.
Yet, I cannot give the book more than three stars. Why?
The first thing I did on completing the book was to search the web for more information about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (1900—1948) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). There are two camps - those who say Scott suppressed Zelda's creative abilities and those who claim that Zelda's mental health, or more correctly her lack thereof, was detrimental to Scott's writing career. Which is it? He suppressed her or she suppressed him. It depends on whom you talk to. This novel is written from Zelda's point of view; she is telling us her life story.
In 1951 Arthur Mizener wrote the biography The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald; interest in the couple revived. Originally the view was that Scott was a writing failure and Zelda was to blame. This was the general view held until 1970 when Nancy Milford wrote a biography of Zelda - Zelda. The tables were turned. Zelda became an icon of the feminist movement. Therese Anne Fowler’s book follows Mitford's general thesis.
I don't think we will ever know the whole truth. My view? In any relationship fault is usually found on both sides. Scott and Zelda fit each other. They lived dizzying lives. Both sought a life that would put them in the center of high society. Along with that followed infidelity, boozing and bitter recriminations. Their daughter, Scottie, wrote after their deaths:
I think (short of documentary evidence to the contrary) that if people are not crazy, they get themselves out of crazy situations, so I have never been able to buy the notion that it was my father's drinking which led her to the sanitarium. Nor do I think she led him to the drinking.
Wiki refers to Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald as its source.
Into which camp you fall will probably be influenced by how you view Hemingway. He was Zelda's enemy from day one. She absolutely detested the complicated friendship that grew up between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. She accused Hemingway of being a fairy! Hemingway!
The book accurately details the known events of Scott's and Zelda's life together. It concludes with the death of Scott, but an afterword fills in with facts about the remaining eight years of Zelda's life, her death and information about their daughter.
There is little humor in the book. You need a bit of that now and then. I have read very funny things about Scott. True details that will make you smile. They are not here in this book.
I wasn't engaged until far into the book. The dialogs and the writing didn’t move me. So much more could have been done through descriptions of the places they lived.
Jenna Lamia narrates the audiobook. Her accentuated Southern drawl fits the young, spoiled Zelda superbly. However her intonations for Scott and Hemingway are just so-so. Zelda matures a bit at the end. I don’t think this is well reflected in the intonation.
Well, at least the book improves by the end. It finally pulled me in. It gives one view of the conflicted relationship between Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
**************************************
After 24 chapters:
I am about half way now.
I didn't give up, and I am glad I didn't. It is improving. Quite simply b/c I am beginning to get into the head of Zelda. I don't have to like her, I just have to understand her and understand the relationship between her and Scott.
I want to be fair in my judgment; it is wrong to just criticize and not praise when a book does improve.
******************************************
After chapter 13:
This is excruciatingly hard to read. It is that bad! It is terrible. Not only are the people more than despicable, the writing is deplorably bad.
- Empty dialogs. The yapping (i.e. the conversations), which should show us each individual's soul, is empty
- No depth to the character portrayals.
- Events are insufficiently depicted.....a trip to Europe (London, Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome) is done in a few lines. The first child is born, but never do you feel with depth the mother's or the father's emotions.
The audiobook narration by Jenna Lamia is, I guess, appropriate It fits the empty dialog.
What a bad start to the year. A total waste of time. I don't know if I can bear to continue.
I am sorry, I never believed this would be so bad. I just cannot keep my mouth shut any more.
By the end of the book my heart melted and I did feel empathy for Zelda. For Zelda, but not Scott. If the book is giving you trouble and if what you are looking for is understanding of and empathy for the characters continue to the end.
Yet, I cannot give the book more than three stars. Why?
The first thing I did on completing the book was to search the web for more information about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (1900—1948) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). There are two camps - those who say Scott suppressed Zelda's creative abilities and those who claim that Zelda's mental health, or more correctly her lack thereof, was detrimental to Scott's writing career. Which is it? He suppressed her or she suppressed him. It depends on whom you talk to. This novel is written from Zelda's point of view; she is telling us her life story.
In 1951 Arthur Mizener wrote the biography The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald; interest in the couple revived. Originally the view was that Scott was a writing failure and Zelda was to blame. This was the general view held until 1970 when Nancy Milford wrote a biography of Zelda - Zelda. The tables were turned. Zelda became an icon of the feminist movement. Therese Anne Fowler’s book follows Mitford's general thesis.
I don't think we will ever know the whole truth. My view? In any relationship fault is usually found on both sides. Scott and Zelda fit each other. They lived dizzying lives. Both sought a life that would put them in the center of high society. Along with that followed infidelity, boozing and bitter recriminations. Their daughter, Scottie, wrote after their deaths:
I think (short of documentary evidence to the contrary) that if people are not crazy, they get themselves out of crazy situations, so I have never been able to buy the notion that it was my father's drinking which led her to the sanitarium. Nor do I think she led him to the drinking.
Wiki refers to Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald as its source.
Into which camp you fall will probably be influenced by how you view Hemingway. He was Zelda's enemy from day one. She absolutely detested the complicated friendship that grew up between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. She accused Hemingway of being a fairy! Hemingway!
The book accurately details the known events of Scott's and Zelda's life together. It concludes with the death of Scott, but an afterword fills in with facts about the remaining eight years of Zelda's life, her death and information about their daughter.
There is little humor in the book. You need a bit of that now and then. I have read very funny things about Scott. True details that will make you smile. They are not here in this book.
I wasn't engaged until far into the book. The dialogs and the writing didn’t move me. So much more could have been done through descriptions of the places they lived.
Jenna Lamia narrates the audiobook. Her accentuated Southern drawl fits the young, spoiled Zelda superbly. However her intonations for Scott and Hemingway are just so-so. Zelda matures a bit at the end. I don’t think this is well reflected in the intonation.
Well, at least the book improves by the end. It finally pulled me in. It gives one view of the conflicted relationship between Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
**************************************
After 24 chapters:
I am about half way now.
I didn't give up, and I am glad I didn't. It is improving. Quite simply b/c I am beginning to get into the head of Zelda. I don't have to like her, I just have to understand her and understand the relationship between her and Scott.
I want to be fair in my judgment; it is wrong to just criticize and not praise when a book does improve.
******************************************
After chapter 13:
This is excruciatingly hard to read. It is that bad! It is terrible. Not only are the people more than despicable, the writing is deplorably bad.
- Empty dialogs. The yapping (i.e. the conversations), which should show us each individual's soul, is empty
- No depth to the character portrayals.
- Events are insufficiently depicted.....a trip to Europe (London, Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome) is done in a few lines. The first child is born, but never do you feel with depth the mother's or the father's emotions.
The audiobook narration by Jenna Lamia is, I guess, appropriate It fits the empty dialog.
What a bad start to the year. A total waste of time. I don't know if I can bear to continue.
I am sorry, I never believed this would be so bad. I just cannot keep my mouth shut any more.
December 29, 2020
3.5 Stars and apparently I’m ready to ring in the Roaring 20s with my selections this week! If you enjoyed The Paris Wife, this should be a winner for you too. I’m not sure what sparked my new Scott and Zelda obsession, but I’m not hating it.
April 13, 2022
Rating 4.5
April 28, 2025
2.5★
Yesterday I accidentally hit the I'm finished! while I updating my status with this book. I read a few more pages yesterday afternoon & I wondered if that had been a Freudian slip! I also wondered why I was continuing with a book that was just so average, when I have some books on my 'to-read' shelf that I have been looking forward to for a very long time!
The start wasn't too bad, although Fowler's Zelda speech patterns didn't say 'Southern Belle' too me. But this Zelda remained oddly flat & generally uncomplaining. When you look at this beautiful & willful face;
it is just too hard to match the Fowler Zelda with how Zelda is normally portrayed.
I would have even been happy with the (slightly hammy) Mia Farrow version of Daisy Buchanan!
Anything that showed a bit of passion, a bit of feeling!
I should have taken it as a warning that the book started with a 'letter' from Zelda to Scott. In the afterward Ms Fowler acknowledges that she created her own Zelda letters rather than using the Fitzgeralds' surviving correspondence. Unless there were copyright restrictions this is a hard decision to understand.
& that cover. Beautiful & iconic if you just take a casual glance (it was the reason I picked this book up) on closer inspection Zelda looks like a giraffe wearing a cloche hat.
DNF @60%.
Yesterday I accidentally hit the I'm finished! while I updating my status with this book. I read a few more pages yesterday afternoon & I wondered if that had been a Freudian slip! I also wondered why I was continuing with a book that was just so average, when I have some books on my 'to-read' shelf that I have been looking forward to for a very long time!
The start wasn't too bad, although Fowler's Zelda speech patterns didn't say 'Southern Belle' too me. But this Zelda remained oddly flat & generally uncomplaining. When you look at this beautiful & willful face;
it is just too hard to match the Fowler Zelda with how Zelda is normally portrayed.
I would have even been happy with the (slightly hammy) Mia Farrow version of Daisy Buchanan!
Anything that showed a bit of passion, a bit of feeling!
I should have taken it as a warning that the book started with a 'letter' from Zelda to Scott. In the afterward Ms Fowler acknowledges that she created her own Zelda letters rather than using the Fitzgeralds' surviving correspondence. Unless there were copyright restrictions this is a hard decision to understand.
& that cover. Beautiful & iconic if you just take a casual glance (it was the reason I picked this book up) on closer inspection Zelda looks like a giraffe wearing a cloche hat.
DNF @60%.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
January 24, 2013
My Fitzgerald fascination began almost 30 years ago as a student when I read The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise and Tender is the Night swiftly followed up by Nancy Milford's excellent biography of Zelda. This new novelisation of Zelda's life is perfectly timed to coincide with the latest movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby and will hopefully stir more interest in this flawed but fascinating couple.
On the surface Zelda seems like a spoiled Southern gal with a taste for the finer things in life but she isn't a celebrity bimbo and underneath that sparkling flapper exterior lurks a razor sharp intellect. Her struggle to reconcile playing the dutiful wife whilst suppressing her creative urges is documented in this meticulously researched novel. The author does an excellent job of capturing Zelda's voice as she narrates the tortuous story of her life with Fitzgerald, the good times and the bad, her stays in asylums, his battle with the bottle, their scintillating social life with the rich and famous including Hemmingway who never clicked with Zelda.
As well as being Zelda's personal story this is an excellent representation of the highs and lows of the Jazz Age - it was such an exhilirating time for writers, especially those of the Lost Generation - Zelda regularly socialised with Hemmingway, TS Eliot, Dos Passos, Ezra Pound as well as Picasso and Jean Cocteau. In this novel you get a real feel for the life of those ex-pats in France and their hedonism after the spectre of the Great War.
If you think Paris Hilton is the archetypal modern Flapper, then perhaps you should read this novel and learn from the original and the best.
On the surface Zelda seems like a spoiled Southern gal with a taste for the finer things in life but she isn't a celebrity bimbo and underneath that sparkling flapper exterior lurks a razor sharp intellect. Her struggle to reconcile playing the dutiful wife whilst suppressing her creative urges is documented in this meticulously researched novel. The author does an excellent job of capturing Zelda's voice as she narrates the tortuous story of her life with Fitzgerald, the good times and the bad, her stays in asylums, his battle with the bottle, their scintillating social life with the rich and famous including Hemmingway who never clicked with Zelda.
As well as being Zelda's personal story this is an excellent representation of the highs and lows of the Jazz Age - it was such an exhilirating time for writers, especially those of the Lost Generation - Zelda regularly socialised with Hemmingway, TS Eliot, Dos Passos, Ezra Pound as well as Picasso and Jean Cocteau. In this novel you get a real feel for the life of those ex-pats in France and their hedonism after the spectre of the Great War.
If you think Paris Hilton is the archetypal modern Flapper, then perhaps you should read this novel and learn from the original and the best.
December 24, 2014
The first part of this book was delightful. Zelda came across as a very engaging, fun character and the story romped along with her. Scott Fitzgerald however was not presented in such a charming manner and once they are married and we have moved houses and countries with them a few times the pace of the book begins to slow and becomes just a little boring. The last part of the book is where the reader sits up and becomes angry on behalf of poor Zelda and what she has to go through. This is a fiction story based on information about their life together but I am not familiar with what really happened so cannot comment on the truth of it all. However it makes good, entertaining reading.
April 4, 2013
“SO WE BEAT ON,
BOATS AGAINST THE CURRENT,
BORNE BACK CEASELESSLY INTO THE PAST"
The young Scott Fitzgerald at only twenty-three years of age had been the youngest writer ever to publish a novel with Scribner. He fell in love with the youthful and joyful young southern girl Zelda. It all seemed quite a fairytale arrangement, an officer and a gentleman, youth, fame, and art. The pursuit of his art and his writing life became quite a stumbling block in Zelda’s life especially when she became a mother and found herself having to put opportunities and dreams in her life on hold living under the shade of her husbands fame. Ultimately a price was to be paid, for all the greatness achieved did not go without its casualties with health demise, and a decline in happiness, the beautiful ran along with the damned and doomed in the timeline of the Fitzgerald existence.
There was plenty of love and passion in that Southern woman and while Scott was consumed in ‘The most important book of his life’ and his pursuit of meaning and excellence she found herself wooed by a Latin army officer she found herself attracted away from her husband this daring wife was for a small time in love something she missed, her spark went out for a while with Scott totally engrossed in his obsessive pursuit of greatness.
Many fascinating things around the writers life was learned of in this story I found quite interesting the choosing of name The Great Gatsby among others including.
Trimalchio
High Bouncing Love
Among Ash Heaps and Millionaires
Trimalchio of West Egg
Gold Hatted Gatsby
On the Road to West Egg
Under the Red White and Blue
Read and learn of the meeting of great writers including Gertrude Stein who was then a fifty-year-old never-married woman an authoritative on modern writing, Zelda’s meeting with Theodore Dreiser and reading his release then of the great new An American Tragedy and her meeting with Thomas Wolfe and her reading of his great story Look Homeward Angel all interesting and inspirational to writers. Her fending off, of men in the form of the peering eyes and hands of Ernest Hemingway and the Ezra Pound scandalous.
Her traveling over continents across oceans in the shade and trail of the famous, of movie stars and the rich and damned in order so that he could acquire his inspiration and complete his writing was a test on her character. His fame on the outside, the great novels, the money, and fame, eventually rotted away his inner being and qualities, and all the while she wanted to succeed on her own but with a child in her care taking up of her dreams was not so easy. She did have a fruitful life of money and bountiful material goods but the Fitzgerald’s after reading this seem more like living the fates written of in The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night and his other writings of fiction. Scott and Zelda the two artists were ambitious and success driven people, they seemed to have an ill fate over them, a bad blood, a bad curse, that has traveled down their generations and had only one way of exit, in that of death.
I anticipate and wait for the Scott Fitzgerald point of view of this story to come to fruition by this writer or a similarly capable author. I will be re-reading again The Great Gatsby and watching the movie, I will read Tender is the Night and others with more insight and Read Zelda’s novel and short stories, including the authors Thomas Wolfe and Theodore Dreiser all due to this inspirational and captivating insider view into the life of the Fitzgerald’s and especially one great and talented woman an artist of many shades Zelda.
This was a great effort, brilliantly strung together from real lives into a plausible and realistic emotional charged journey, a portrait layered out in words wonderfully. A reader will come away knowing, through seeing and feeling via the author successfully showing in her writing, what it was like to be Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald.
He bowed. “Lieutenant Scott Fitzgerald, hoping to make your acquaintance.” His voice was deeper than I’d expected, with no trace of Alabama or any place Southern.
I pretended to be shocked by his forwardness. “Without a proper introduction?”
“Life is potentially very short these days-and, your latest partner might return at any moment.” He leaned closer. “I’m wiser than I am impetuous or improper, rest assured.”
“Well. General Pershing ought to be consulting you on strategy. I’m Zelda Sayre.” I offered my hand.
“Zelda? That’s unusual. A family name?”
“A Gypsy name, from a novel called Zelda’s Fortune.”
He laughed. “A novel, really?”
“What, do you think my mother is illiterate? Southern women can read.”
“No, of course. I’m impressed, is all. A gypsy character-well, that’s just terrific. I’m a writer, you see. In fact I’ve got a novel being read by Scribner’s right now-they’re a New York City publishing house.”
“He danced as well as any of my partners ever had-better, maybe. It seemed to me that the energy I was feeling that night had infused him, too; we glided through the waltz as if we’d been dancing together for years.
I liked his starched, woolly, cologne smell. His height, but five inches taller than my five feet four inches, was, I thought, the exact right height. His shoulders were the exact right width. His grip on my hand was somehow both formal and familiar, his hand on my waist both possessive and tentative. His blue-green eyes were clear, yet mysterious, and his lips curved just slightly upward.
The result of all this was that although we danced well together, I felt off-balance the entire time. I wasn’t used to this feeling, but, my goodness, I liked it.”
“Scott grew a mustache and read Byron and Shelley and Keats, all in preparation, he said, for the task ahead of him. How the mustache would help him write I couldn’t say, and I don’t think he could, either.”
“Believing Europe had turned toxic, or at least toxic for us, we moved to a charming little house in Montgomery, where I would have my family to help me readjust.
Little had changed in the eleven years we’d been away, but for me, everything had changed. I had changed. Freedom from Prangins had been my greatest desire, yet like a slave after emancipation, I wasn’t quite sure how to exist in this quiet, calm, open-ended world, how to be a mother to my cautious daughter, a wife to any man-let alone one as observant and particular as Scott. When he left Scottie and me for an unexpected six-week job in Hollywood for MGM, my moods and my confidence rolled like the ocean in a storm, leaving me seasick, sometimes, and scared. I’d been forbidden to resume ballet-and was so out of condition that I was hardly tempted anyway-so to steady myself I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote: essays, stories, letters to friends, an article for Esquire, the start of a book.”
Review also @ http://more2read.com/review/z-a-novel-of-zelda-fitzgerald-by-therese-anne-fowler/
December 25, 2015
When my husband took English lit. in college, he did a paper on F Scott Fitzgerald; and over the years he has talked about Zelda being this mad woman who was insanely jealous of Scott’s success, etc. Thus I really looked forward to reading this book, my first foray into Zelda’s world. Although not entirely factual, it is based on letters and known events researched by Therese Anne Fowler. I just loved Fowler’s rendering of the couple’s courtship and early years together. They both were intelligent, adventurous, interesting, clever (also reckless and self-centered), living in all the best places and socializing with the elite. Lots of name dropping and lots of drinking here. Their marriage seemed to be a genuine partnership, both having Scott’s writing career their main focus. But then Zelda grew restless and bored when Scott was either holed up writing or off partying. It was the 1920’s and a wife was meant to be a “wife” in the truest sense. The fact that Zelda had a remarkable brain and creativity of her own was something she wanted others to know, not just that she was the woman behind the famous man. When Zelda developed colitis or whatever that was, and had to stop drinking, the proverbial camel’s back began to break. No more drinking on her part led her to dabble in writing her own stories and studying ballet again, which became an unhealthy obsession. Scott had to find other drinking partners, one of which was Ernest Hemingway, who Zelda hated and blamed for the further break in the marriage.
History tells that she had schizophrenia and spent years in and out of institutions. This book may make one wonder if it really was schizophrenia, or just the fact that she didn’t fit the norm of what a wife should be, and even if Scott just didn’t feel better about himself with her confined and out of the way. This book led to quite a discussion (all right, argument) with my husband on that subject, I of course being on the side of the oppressed Zelda (Team Zelda) and he of course on Team Scott. It also prompted me to go watch the movie Midnight in Paris. All in all fascinating and I am so glad to have read it! Fowler’s writing was superb.
History tells that she had schizophrenia and spent years in and out of institutions. This book may make one wonder if it really was schizophrenia, or just the fact that she didn’t fit the norm of what a wife should be, and even if Scott just didn’t feel better about himself with her confined and out of the way. This book led to quite a discussion (all right, argument) with my husband on that subject, I of course being on the side of the oppressed Zelda (Team Zelda) and he of course on Team Scott. It also prompted me to go watch the movie Midnight in Paris. All in all fascinating and I am so glad to have read it! Fowler’s writing was superb.
March 20, 2018
Z a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is a biographical work of fiction by Therese Anne Fowler. The story takes off in Montgomery, the hometown of a seventeen-year-old Zelda Sayre, who meets soldier F. Scott Fitzgerald. He quickly manages to enchant Zelda, who has never met a professional writer before, and the two fall in love even though her father strongly disagrees with the match.
To me, this was a lovely and intriguing story that carried me away to a different time and different places. I truly see Zelda as an interesting character, and biographical fiction does the trick a little better than just reading facts only. What I find most fascinating is how Zelda seems a little out of place during the era she lived in. On the one hand, she was quite revolutionary as the ‘first flapper’ and I think she would have marveled in a world where she was treated as an individual being rather than merely a wife. On the other hand, Fowler’s version of Zelda was continually influenced by Scott, by her traditional parents, and even by doctors during the time of her being ill, who all kept reminding her that being a wife, and the ‘duties’ that came with it were more important than everything else.
What I regretted is that this book did hardly give us anything about Zelda alone, given that it started just before Zelda and Scott met, and ended shortly after Scott’s death. Nevertheless, this book is brilliant if you want to get better acquainted with the Fitzgerald’s works as it gives you a good feeling of the circumstances and time during which they both lived and worked as writers/artists.
I rated this book with 4 out of 5 stars, because this book took me on a fascinating journey across time.
To me, this was a lovely and intriguing story that carried me away to a different time and different places. I truly see Zelda as an interesting character, and biographical fiction does the trick a little better than just reading facts only. What I find most fascinating is how Zelda seems a little out of place during the era she lived in. On the one hand, she was quite revolutionary as the ‘first flapper’ and I think she would have marveled in a world where she was treated as an individual being rather than merely a wife. On the other hand, Fowler’s version of Zelda was continually influenced by Scott, by her traditional parents, and even by doctors during the time of her being ill, who all kept reminding her that being a wife, and the ‘duties’ that came with it were more important than everything else.
What I regretted is that this book did hardly give us anything about Zelda alone, given that it started just before Zelda and Scott met, and ended shortly after Scott’s death. Nevertheless, this book is brilliant if you want to get better acquainted with the Fitzgerald’s works as it gives you a good feeling of the circumstances and time during which they both lived and worked as writers/artists.
I rated this book with 4 out of 5 stars, because this book took me on a fascinating journey across time.
August 8, 2025
Therese Anne Fowler's novel "Z", a fictionalized account of Zelda Fitzgerald and her tumultuous marriage with F. Scott Fitzgerald, may not add anything new to the body of biographical literature available, but for someone like me, who has never read a biography of Zelda or Scott Fitzgerald prior to this book, it is nevertheless a fascinating and enlightening view into the lives of the Fitzgeralds.
History and biographers, according to Fowler in her afterword, have not been kind to Zelda. Or Scott, for that matter. Fowler, who obviously conducted years of extensive research, says that biographers have either taken one of two approaches: Zelda ruined Scott's life, or Scott ruined Zelda's life. This, she says, is completely unfair to both of them. Indeed, Fowler does not seem to be interested in laying blame for anything in her novel.
Fowler's very plausible contention is that Zelda and Scott were two very sweet, idealistic and extraordinarily naive young kids (Scott was 24 and Zelda was 20 at the time of their marriage) who were too quickly thrust into a life of fame and celebrityhood. They were the Roaring Twenties equivalent of rock stars, and the non-stop partying quickly took its toll.
Zelda Sayre was a Southern belle from Montgomery, Alabama, the daughter of a very loving and conservative couple. When she met and fell in love with Scott, a young army lieutenant, everyone---especially her parents---warned her that Scott was not right for her. He was too ambitious, too wild, too unrealistic in his dreams of becoming a famous writer. She didn't care.
Theirs was a whirlwind romance, spurred by Scott's success with his first novel, "This Side of Paradise", published when he was only 23.They married soon after, and they quickly moved to France. It was there that the Fitzgeralds became part of the artistic and intellectual elite of artists and writers living there. They became friends with people like Cole Porter, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway.
It is Scott's deep friendship with Hemingway that Fowler notes was the tipping point for the Fitzgerald's downfall. She is not very kind to Hemingway, whom she describes as a two-faced male chauvinist asshole, which he probably was. Interestingly, while she never actually confirms it, Fowler suggests the possibility that there was a strong homoerotic relationship between Scott and Hemingway. Apparently, at one point in their marriage, Zelda was extremely jealous of her husband's relationship with Hemingway. Fowler also notes, in her afterword, that no one knows what really happened between Zelda and Hemingway, but at some point, a cordial relationship between the two almost overnight became vicious and hateful. In her novel, Fowler creates a scenario in which Hemingway unsuccessfully tries to rape her during one of his notorious drunken escapades, but this incident is simply speculative.
The novel paints a sad portrait of a failing marriage, brought on by Scott's alcoholism and, later, Zelda's mental illness. Misdiagnosed with schizophrenia (Fowler believes that she was most likely bipolar), Zelda spent many years in and out of institutions, suffering at the hands of overzealous doctors and harsh treatments such as electro-schock therapy.
Amazingly, through all this, the couple managed to successfully raise a daughter, Scottie, and Zelda even became a somewhat successful writer herself, much to the chagrin of Scott.
"Z" is a good read, especially for those unfamiliar with the lives of the Fitzgeralds, and it is probably a good starting point for delving into the number of biographies about both Zelda and Scott.
History and biographers, according to Fowler in her afterword, have not been kind to Zelda. Or Scott, for that matter. Fowler, who obviously conducted years of extensive research, says that biographers have either taken one of two approaches: Zelda ruined Scott's life, or Scott ruined Zelda's life. This, she says, is completely unfair to both of them. Indeed, Fowler does not seem to be interested in laying blame for anything in her novel.
Fowler's very plausible contention is that Zelda and Scott were two very sweet, idealistic and extraordinarily naive young kids (Scott was 24 and Zelda was 20 at the time of their marriage) who were too quickly thrust into a life of fame and celebrityhood. They were the Roaring Twenties equivalent of rock stars, and the non-stop partying quickly took its toll.
Zelda Sayre was a Southern belle from Montgomery, Alabama, the daughter of a very loving and conservative couple. When she met and fell in love with Scott, a young army lieutenant, everyone---especially her parents---warned her that Scott was not right for her. He was too ambitious, too wild, too unrealistic in his dreams of becoming a famous writer. She didn't care.
Theirs was a whirlwind romance, spurred by Scott's success with his first novel, "This Side of Paradise", published when he was only 23.They married soon after, and they quickly moved to France. It was there that the Fitzgeralds became part of the artistic and intellectual elite of artists and writers living there. They became friends with people like Cole Porter, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway.
It is Scott's deep friendship with Hemingway that Fowler notes was the tipping point for the Fitzgerald's downfall. She is not very kind to Hemingway, whom she describes as a two-faced male chauvinist asshole, which he probably was. Interestingly, while she never actually confirms it, Fowler suggests the possibility that there was a strong homoerotic relationship between Scott and Hemingway. Apparently, at one point in their marriage, Zelda was extremely jealous of her husband's relationship with Hemingway. Fowler also notes, in her afterword, that no one knows what really happened between Zelda and Hemingway, but at some point, a cordial relationship between the two almost overnight became vicious and hateful. In her novel, Fowler creates a scenario in which Hemingway unsuccessfully tries to rape her during one of his notorious drunken escapades, but this incident is simply speculative.
The novel paints a sad portrait of a failing marriage, brought on by Scott's alcoholism and, later, Zelda's mental illness. Misdiagnosed with schizophrenia (Fowler believes that she was most likely bipolar), Zelda spent many years in and out of institutions, suffering at the hands of overzealous doctors and harsh treatments such as electro-schock therapy.
Amazingly, through all this, the couple managed to successfully raise a daughter, Scottie, and Zelda even became a somewhat successful writer herself, much to the chagrin of Scott.
"Z" is a good read, especially for those unfamiliar with the lives of the Fitzgeralds, and it is probably a good starting point for delving into the number of biographies about both Zelda and Scott.
February 7, 2017
I'm prefacing this review with the disclaimer that I acknowledged this book as a work of fiction right from the get go and relaxed into it as such. What I didn't expect was that it would be an impetus for me to scour the used book sites for biographies on both F.S. Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald. I have quite a stack to begin to sort through as well as an illustrated educational book on The Jazz Age to peruse. I'm fascinated by the couple, their writings, and am now eager to read accounts of their lives.
I loved the narrator in this audio. She made me feel as if Zelda was in the room speaking in a conversational tone. The story flows easily and the nods to literary references found in Fitzgerald's writings are prevalent. I highly recommend this in audio format.
The Book Itself:
Fowler takes us from the early courtship of Zelda and Fitzgerald through their wanderings of Europe and ultimate return to the states. We see their struggles through Zelda's eyes (or supposed eyes based on Fowler's research). I was captivated by the parties, the clothes, the discussions on writing, societal customs, Zelda's art and dance, and ultimately with the couple themselves. However, each time I was intrigued with an aspect of the story, I would stop and wonder if it was real since this is a work of fiction. Hence my new 2017 study into the couple's lives and works. So I'm incredibly appreciative to Fowler for this book as it is opening my literary experience. As a caveat, Fowler is firmly on Team Zelda and it is obvious where her sympathies lie in the couple's issues/disagreements/grievances.
I loved the narrator in this audio. She made me feel as if Zelda was in the room speaking in a conversational tone. The story flows easily and the nods to literary references found in Fitzgerald's writings are prevalent. I highly recommend this in audio format.
The Book Itself:
Fowler takes us from the early courtship of Zelda and Fitzgerald through their wanderings of Europe and ultimate return to the states. We see their struggles through Zelda's eyes (or supposed eyes based on Fowler's research). I was captivated by the parties, the clothes, the discussions on writing, societal customs, Zelda's art and dance, and ultimately with the couple themselves. However, each time I was intrigued with an aspect of the story, I would stop and wonder if it was real since this is a work of fiction. Hence my new 2017 study into the couple's lives and works. So I'm incredibly appreciative to Fowler for this book as it is opening my literary experience. As a caveat, Fowler is firmly on Team Zelda and it is obvious where her sympathies lie in the couple's issues/disagreements/grievances.
January 2, 2015
The life of Zelda Sayre is exciting, glamourous, chilling, and intriguing. This book is historical fiction, but I'd like to believe that it's more accurate to the true character of this amazing woman that was married to F Scott Fitzgerald.
The reputations of their relationship alone makes this one that any reader would be interested in picking up, for me, I couldn't put it down! (Which worked out well, as I was racing against time to finish it for a challenge by year end!) Zelda and Scott came alive on these pages, with cameos from Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. I happened to be in NYC for the last chunk of the book and got to see St. Patrick's Cathedral and Scribner's old building-- which is where Scott and Zelda married and then headed to Scribner's to see Scott's first published book!
The author did a brilliant job researching and bringing Zelda to life without tarnishing her reputation. I end this book desperate to read more about this couple and their lives...
The only downside was that I felt the ending was a bit rushed, the way the rest of the book was written pulled me to a point, where I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen, and then it all spewed out over a few pages.
The reputations of their relationship alone makes this one that any reader would be interested in picking up, for me, I couldn't put it down! (Which worked out well, as I was racing against time to finish it for a challenge by year end!) Zelda and Scott came alive on these pages, with cameos from Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. I happened to be in NYC for the last chunk of the book and got to see St. Patrick's Cathedral and Scribner's old building-- which is where Scott and Zelda married and then headed to Scribner's to see Scott's first published book!
The author did a brilliant job researching and bringing Zelda to life without tarnishing her reputation. I end this book desperate to read more about this couple and their lives...
The only downside was that I felt the ending was a bit rushed, the way the rest of the book was written pulled me to a point, where I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen, and then it all spewed out over a few pages.
May 19, 2021
When I first read The Great Gatsby I was in HS, and was disappointed that the romance between Gatsby and his Daisy ended as it did, and it was just one more book in the Canon of White Mostly Alcoholic Male Writers that cast a pall over my teen-age years. I read A Moveable Feast the summer I started reading all of Hemingway, and read it again while taking an honors seminar in college in Faulkner & Hemingway. I accepted conventional wisdom about Zelda’s being crazy, ruining F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life. In years to follow, I re-read TGG in preparation for teaching it to my classes & discovered it to be a nearly perfect evocation of the American desire for reinvention, our relentless determination to hope, our love of “do-overs” & second acts. It spoke to my early 30s adulthood.
As life continued, and I struggled to find a space for myself in the midst of raising 3 children while serving as an active duty Naval Officer with an active duty spouse who spent months elsewhere, I began to think about the women in the lives of these writers, most of whom were bright, strong women relegated by the cultural mores of the time to supporting roles no matter how talented they were in their own ways. Once they married, their identities were subsumed into the role of Wife. Which brings me to the ineffably sad tale of Zelda who was a Renaissance woman married to a briefly bright burning star in the literary firmament whose alcoholism dragged her and her daughter into the train wreck of his sad decline which he often blamed on her. She ended up being misdiagnosed and tortured with the procedures that passed for mental health treatment in the 30s and 40s, constantly being forbidden to write as her ambition, according to her doctors and husband, was at the root of her illness, her need to “compete” with her husband was “unnatural” and “unwomanly”. Disregard the fact that the stories she wrote and published helped keep their economic life afloat (published either with his name attached to hers or his name alone) in a time when Fitzgerald was drinking to excess daily and could not write. She was a professional-level dancer, an artist, she was a creative and more disciplined writer, but was constantly undermined. Their story is made more tragic by the promise that shone within both of them. Yet the two of them clung to each other through the frantic highs of the 20s to the grim lows of the 30s, while Hemingway picked up and dropped wives and lovers, not to mention friends and colleagues, like fashion trends. His shadow is cast over the Fitzgeralds like a thunder cloud, it should have its own ominous music theme. Someone should write a Jazz Age opera with the three of them, if someone has not already, Hemingway is as dark as Scarpia in Tosca, a force majeure that changes the dynamics at Chez Fitzgerald irrevocably. This story echoes the tragedy of TGG. It has left me with a lingering sadness, yet also very glad that I have read it. It is well written, compelling, empathetic, and fascinating. Very highly recommended. I will be reading more about Zelda in coming months, looking for images of her paintings, reading her stories, thinking about her in the context of her time and ours. She sticks with me after turning the last page, a sweet sadness tempered by a respect for her temerity and determination. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
As life continued, and I struggled to find a space for myself in the midst of raising 3 children while serving as an active duty Naval Officer with an active duty spouse who spent months elsewhere, I began to think about the women in the lives of these writers, most of whom were bright, strong women relegated by the cultural mores of the time to supporting roles no matter how talented they were in their own ways. Once they married, their identities were subsumed into the role of Wife. Which brings me to the ineffably sad tale of Zelda who was a Renaissance woman married to a briefly bright burning star in the literary firmament whose alcoholism dragged her and her daughter into the train wreck of his sad decline which he often blamed on her. She ended up being misdiagnosed and tortured with the procedures that passed for mental health treatment in the 30s and 40s, constantly being forbidden to write as her ambition, according to her doctors and husband, was at the root of her illness, her need to “compete” with her husband was “unnatural” and “unwomanly”. Disregard the fact that the stories she wrote and published helped keep their economic life afloat (published either with his name attached to hers or his name alone) in a time when Fitzgerald was drinking to excess daily and could not write. She was a professional-level dancer, an artist, she was a creative and more disciplined writer, but was constantly undermined. Their story is made more tragic by the promise that shone within both of them. Yet the two of them clung to each other through the frantic highs of the 20s to the grim lows of the 30s, while Hemingway picked up and dropped wives and lovers, not to mention friends and colleagues, like fashion trends. His shadow is cast over the Fitzgeralds like a thunder cloud, it should have its own ominous music theme. Someone should write a Jazz Age opera with the three of them, if someone has not already, Hemingway is as dark as Scarpia in Tosca, a force majeure that changes the dynamics at Chez Fitzgerald irrevocably. This story echoes the tragedy of TGG. It has left me with a lingering sadness, yet also very glad that I have read it. It is well written, compelling, empathetic, and fascinating. Very highly recommended. I will be reading more about Zelda in coming months, looking for images of her paintings, reading her stories, thinking about her in the context of her time and ours. She sticks with me after turning the last page, a sweet sadness tempered by a respect for her temerity and determination. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
March 1, 2015
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald should first and foremost be regarded as a semi-fictional account of the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Although the main events of this book are real, proven instances from their tumultuous life together, the perspective put forward is at best imagined by author Therese Anne Fowler. If I had to compare it to another similar style of novel, I would draw comparisons to The Paris Wife by Paula McLain which tells a similar tale from the perspective of Ernest Hemingway's first wife Hadley Richardson. However, I felt that this was still an excellent account of Zelda Sayre's life, and the emotions and thought processes depicted came across as very honest and real.
This novel made me almost spit with anger at points internally on the lack of support and encouragement Zelda received throughout her life, particularly from her husband. It's a feminist's utter nightmare, and I felt proud of Zelda for trying to pursue her interests and dreams so constantly, even if ultimately it led to them being crushed and her almost complete breakdown. It was good to see things from an alternate point of view, and find out a little more about the "real" Zelda Fitzgerald, who was more than just a wife and mother.
I really want to read some of the source material that Fowler used, such as the letters between Zelda and Scott themselves. I feel comforted knowing that this book was very well researched, but at the end of the day much of it is still fiction (including the fictionalised letters in this book), and I would love to read something that came entirely from Zelda next. However, I think I will have to wait a little while before I do so - reading this one account of her life has really taken it out of me, both mentally and physically!
This novel made me almost spit with anger at points internally on the lack of support and encouragement Zelda received throughout her life, particularly from her husband. It's a feminist's utter nightmare, and I felt proud of Zelda for trying to pursue her interests and dreams so constantly, even if ultimately it led to them being crushed and her almost complete breakdown. It was good to see things from an alternate point of view, and find out a little more about the "real" Zelda Fitzgerald, who was more than just a wife and mother.
I really want to read some of the source material that Fowler used, such as the letters between Zelda and Scott themselves. I feel comforted knowing that this book was very well researched, but at the end of the day much of it is still fiction (including the fictionalised letters in this book), and I would love to read something that came entirely from Zelda next. However, I think I will have to wait a little while before I do so - reading this one account of her life has really taken it out of me, both mentally and physically!
November 18, 2017
la mamma del mio amico m. si chiamava zelda in onore suo, di zelda sayre fitzgerald. e non ha mai smesso di stupirmi la scelta di dare a una bambina il nome di una donna sicuramente affascinante, che però oltre ad aver molto vissuto ha anche molto sofferto. e sulla quale i pareri dei contemporanei (hemingway prima di tutti) sono passati dall'affinità all'antipatia, e sono stati parecchio controversi: zelda ora vittima di fsf, ora pazza scatenata.
in questo libro speravo di trovare qualche spunto al di fuori dei cliché sull'età del jazz, sui belli e dannati, su quelli che non si sono fermati di qua dal paradiso, ma hanno fatto andata e ritorno uscendone mitici ma parecchio malconci.
zelda di therese anne fowler, invece, di cliché ne ha a bizzeffe e si ferma nella categoria di leggibile romanzo basato su numerosi fatti, molte lettere e moltissimo tempo - sostiene l’autrice - dedicato allo studio. non è che proprio mi sia annoiata, ma è stato come guardare uno sceneggiato con donne ben vestite e tipi sessualmente disinibiti. nulla di più.
rifletto poi che la mamma del mio amico è stata a sua volta, in effetti, donna molto disinibita e molto progressista. ha saputo schivare gli alterni colpi dell’ingiuriosa fortuna con più abilità della celebre omonima, e ogni tanto mi piace pensare che il nome nel suo caso abbia portato fortuna. non per altro, ma a questo punto se rinasco voglio sposare anfribogart.
(al libro tre stelle risicate)
in questo libro speravo di trovare qualche spunto al di fuori dei cliché sull'età del jazz, sui belli e dannati, su quelli che non si sono fermati di qua dal paradiso, ma hanno fatto andata e ritorno uscendone mitici ma parecchio malconci.
zelda di therese anne fowler, invece, di cliché ne ha a bizzeffe e si ferma nella categoria di leggibile romanzo basato su numerosi fatti, molte lettere e moltissimo tempo - sostiene l’autrice - dedicato allo studio. non è che proprio mi sia annoiata, ma è stato come guardare uno sceneggiato con donne ben vestite e tipi sessualmente disinibiti. nulla di più.
rifletto poi che la mamma del mio amico è stata a sua volta, in effetti, donna molto disinibita e molto progressista. ha saputo schivare gli alterni colpi dell’ingiuriosa fortuna con più abilità della celebre omonima, e ogni tanto mi piace pensare che il nome nel suo caso abbia portato fortuna. non per altro, ma a questo punto se rinasco voglio sposare anfribogart.
(al libro tre stelle risicate)
July 23, 2022
What I liked: Theresa Anne Fowler does a splendid job at capturing the tumultuous, dysfunctional, alcoholic, exuberant, and the absolute epitomy-of-a-Jazz Age couple that were the Fitzgeralds, and you truly feel immersed inside the glamour and glitz of fame and fortune during the Roaring Twenties. Told from Zelda's point of view, you see the codependent, rollercoaster relationship with her husband, the notoriously brilliant F. Scott Fitzgerald, and how they became each other's inspiration and raisin d'etre. But you also see them as bringing out the worst in each other, and yet Scott relied upon her heavily as his writing muse, even as he started drowning under the sea of alcohol that overcame his life. Zelda is a picture of a woman caught between clamoring for the independence of the rising women's liberation movement by producing her own writing, painting, and dancing - much to the chagrin of her husband - but also wanting to be the dutiful wife that stands by his side. She tries to step out on her own merits but is always overshadowed and minimized by her famous spouse, and she never fully gains her spot in the sun.
What I was just ok with: Zelda, being institutionalized for what we would consider bipolar (originally diagnosed with schizophrenia) was subjected to horrific treatments while in the multiple sanitariums. Thing is, I honestly did not see the mental illness evident at all throughout the book, so it quite surprised me that she had a nervous breakdown (though I had previously known this about Zelda). I wish that Fowler had developed this a bit more, especially because this likely contributed to a major part of their marriage issues, but it honestly felt like it came out of the blue.
What I disliked: Fowler does bring in the competitive love/hate friendship Fitzgerald had with Ernest Hemingway, where they would drink each other under the table, be jealous of the other's successes, yet were cut from the same writing cloth, essentially being frienemies that spurred each other on. Frankly, I am not terribly wild about the allegation of a rumor that Fowler expounds on between the two men, and I'm not sure if this was her own creative license or just buying into the rumor to spice up her novel. Either way, this disappointed me without actual evidence to back up a bombshell claim. Maybe it happened? Maybe it didn't? But, was this necessary? I don't think so, and Fitzgerald himself is likely rolling over in his grave.
In all, this gives a full-bodied picture of the semi-autobiographical lives behind The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night, and the writing process behind these masterpieces of literature. The Fitzgeralds WERE the Roaring Twenties, and honestly, they sucked the marrow out of life and enjoyed themselves to the point of their own destruction. Go along for the ride and live vicariously through the uproarious parties, the flappers, and hobnob with the rich and famous without having to endure the hangovers in the morning. You will be entertained and educated at the same wonderful time.
What I was just ok with: Zelda, being institutionalized for what we would consider bipolar (originally diagnosed with schizophrenia) was subjected to horrific treatments while in the multiple sanitariums. Thing is, I honestly did not see the mental illness evident at all throughout the book, so it quite surprised me that she had a nervous breakdown (though I had previously known this about Zelda). I wish that Fowler had developed this a bit more, especially because this likely contributed to a major part of their marriage issues, but it honestly felt like it came out of the blue.
What I disliked: Fowler does bring in the competitive love/hate friendship Fitzgerald had with Ernest Hemingway, where they would drink each other under the table, be jealous of the other's successes, yet were cut from the same writing cloth, essentially being frienemies that spurred each other on. Frankly, I am not terribly wild about the allegation of a rumor that Fowler expounds on between the two men, and I'm not sure if this was her own creative license or just buying into the rumor to spice up her novel. Either way, this disappointed me without actual evidence to back up a bombshell claim. Maybe it happened? Maybe it didn't? But, was this necessary? I don't think so, and Fitzgerald himself is likely rolling over in his grave.
In all, this gives a full-bodied picture of the semi-autobiographical lives behind The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night, and the writing process behind these masterpieces of literature. The Fitzgeralds WERE the Roaring Twenties, and honestly, they sucked the marrow out of life and enjoyed themselves to the point of their own destruction. Go along for the ride and live vicariously through the uproarious parties, the flappers, and hobnob with the rich and famous without having to endure the hangovers in the morning. You will be entertained and educated at the same wonderful time.
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