Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitgerald by Therese Anne Fowler: book review

 

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013) is written in the first person, as if by Zelda herself. It commences in 1918 in Montgomery, Alabama, when Zelda Sayre is 18 years old and the house “was wrapped in the tiny white blooms of Confederate jasmine.” She couldn’t have looked lovelier, like Botticelli’s Venus. Then “Oh, my” – Zelda saw Francis Scott Fitzgerald for the first time, when he was not yet a great author, but an army officer. She noticed his “softly squared chin, the perfect almond shape of his eyes … his eyes were clear, yet mysterious, and his lips curved just slightly upward.” When she learned that he wrote, she thought of him, “He’s all words, no substance.” Scott (as he called himself) “was giving too much credit to the idea that if he secured a new job, he’d be able to put the rest of his plan into action. New job, new wife, time for writing, cash for the theatre and parties, great book, literary fame … it was an impossible plan.”

In the same year, Scribners publishing house accepted F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise – the book that started it all. At 23 years of age, he was Scribner’s youngest author. In April 1920 Zelda and Scott married and 18 months later their daughter, Frances “Scottie” was born. Zelda and Scott were The Golden Couple. She was the original party girl and 1920s flapper (dancer) and he was a budding author. During her pregnancy she too had time to write – she wrote a 2,000 word review which was published in a magazine. She was excited about it, but Scott merely said how nice it was that she’d found a hobby.

In 1922, Scott’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was published – “a strange and whimsical story” – for which he earned a thousand dollars. But a writer’s royalties fluctuated – and mostly the Fitzgeralds were broke.

By 1924 they moved to Paris and into the company of serious writers: Dorothy Parker, Sherwood Anderson, Anita Loos, Carl van Vechten, Ring Lardner, John Don Passos, Jean Cocteuau, Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. “We became acquainted with Hemingway the writer before we met Hemingway the man.” Scott was obsessed with Hemingway – his prose had force, Scott told Zelda. But by 1925, Scott was on the same pedestal as Hemingway. The Great Gatsby was published. “Gatsby was short – around fifty thousand words – but in that brevity was a lot of nuance.” His publisher cabled, “Sale situation doubtful. Excellent reviews.”

From the outskirts of Paris they moved to the Right Bank and partied on the Left Bank – and by now Gatsby had made its debut on Broadway. Hemingway was writing Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises – “its sales were respectable but not astonishing, and its reviews generally good but not an avalanche of praise.”

Zelda continued to dance and dance. In September 1929 she was accepted into the San Carlo Ballet Company in Naples as a premier dancer and soloist. It was the highlight of her career, but Scott was not happy. “Our life is in France,” he said, and she declined the offer.

Suffering bouts of bipolar disorder, and checking herself into a sanitarium, she wrote her first novel, Save Me the Waltz, which was published in 1932 by Scott’s publisher, Maxwell Perkins, who  cabled, “there was much to appreciate, some truly beautiful descriptions and terms of phrase.” But it only sold a thousand or so copies. Leaving Scott, Zelda had little to do with him in the three years before his death in 1940 from heart attack – with a mountain of debts. She didn’t go to the funeral: “There’s no need for me to be present; I’m not saying good-bye.”

After his death, she re-released his novel The Last Tycoon which led to a resurgence of his works. By 1945 The Great Gatsby sold 20 million copies.

Again checking herself into a psychiatric hospital in 1948, Zelda died when a fire filled the building with flames and smoke. 

Interestingly told, Fowler’s novel focuses on the woman who wanted to please her husband by being as capable as she was beautiful. As she wrote in a letter to Scott, “Excuse me for being so intellectual. I know you would prefer something nice and feminine and affectionate” – and added “I love you, even if there isn’t any me, or any love, or even any life. I love you.”