This is the story of the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald and how his life related to his writing. This is the story of a very sad life.

Imagine writing a novel and getting fame and fortune in your early twenties and getting carried away with it. This is what happened to Fitzgerald. He became an alcoholic and was married to a nut. They cavorted all over the place, doing outrageous things, but it caught up to them.

Their lifestyle was way more than they could afford and his best novels weren't contemporary commercial successes. He was known during his lifetime for their zaney antics more than his writing.

He ended up writing in Hollywood, but was considered a washed up hack and barely tolerated. He died of a heart attack at the age of 44. Who does that?

His work only became acclaimed well after his death. He couldn't make enough on The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night and The Last Tycoon to sustain them. By her late 20's his wife Zelda had to be institutionalized because she was nuts. She died a few years after he did in a fire in the asylum she was living in , in North Carolina.

He supported her and paid for everything for the rest of his life, but was deep in debt when he died.

Imagine writing one of the most acclaimed novels of the 20th Century (Gatsby) and not getting any credit for it in your lifetime. That is what Fitzgerald endured.

anyone with an interest in Fitzgerald.

the way he stood by Zelda, even though she was insane from the beginning.

sad. The Catholic Church refused to allow him to be buried in their cemetery with his dad, because of his degenerate lifestyle. What a bunch of hypocrites! He was finally allowed to be buried at the Catholic Cemetery in Maryland in the 1970's, when his writing was more acclaimed. I went to that church with my parents (for a social thing) weekly for years and never knew he and Zelda were buried outside in the cemetery in Rockville Maryland. I hope they both are at peace.

did a good job with his research, although in some parts of the book he jumps around time-wise and that was a little bit disconcerting.

if you have read Fitzgerald or studied him in college, this answers a lot of questions. He was a complicated guy.

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Created Jul 27, 2014 at 12:45pm • Submit your own review...