Zelda Sayre became the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1920 after a two-year courtship between the southern belle daughter of a prominent judge and the handsome, talented writer who coined the term “The Jazz Age.”
With the publication of his first novel “This Side of Paradise,” the Fitzgeralds became the toast of New York and moved in literary circles which took them to Paris to cavort with other writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Edmund Wilson. Typical of the young people of the Roaring Twenties, Scott and Zelda engaged in drinking to excess, partying and giving parties, and enjoying their renown as an extremely beautiful and successful couple.
Their one child, a girl they called Scottie, was born a year after their marriage and was the delight of Scott although Zelda maintained some distance from Scottie throughout her life. Ten years after their marriage, Zelda was admitted to a mental hospital, diagnosed as a schizophrenic. Scott maintained his attention to her during her illness and it was obvious that the couple loved each other deeply even though they quarreled frequently and were often in competition career-wise, as Zelda had published some works as well as achieving some success as a painter; she even attempted to become a ballerina at one point in their marriage.
It was thought that much of their written correspondence when Zelda was hospitalized had been lost, but Nancy Milford was able to unearth a great deal of their private papers as well as to interview many of the couple’s friends and family who revealed to Milford much that had not been known to the general public. One wonders why Nancy Milford would want to invade the privacy of this adoring couple and bring to light the embarrassing years when Zelda was unable to put forth a façade as a functioning adult.
Zelda comes across as an unfriendly, not very beautiful woman who lived in the shadow of her husband’s success and cared only for her own welfare. Scott’s worst faults were put under the microscope. He drank to excess even though he suffered from what was diagnosed as tuberculosis; he carried on an affair with the famous Sheilah Graham when he went by himself to Hollywood to gain work as a scriptwriter.
I doubt that many readers will stay until the bitter end of this book when both of these protagonists suffered an early death. The biography seems to have little redeeming value except to flaunt Nancy Milford’s ability to access the private papers of a literary icon and his family so that she might air their dirty laundry in public.
