Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

I would like to say, at the beginning of this review, that, although I am a Vine Reviewer, I bought this book myself, and I am reviewing it, not because I have to but because I want to. I fell in love with Scott Fitzgerald's writing the summer I was 14. I have continued to love his books and stories for fifty years. One story, "The Cut Glass Bowl" stopped me from ever having cut glass in my home. Now I find that some of that writing I have read and reread may not have been written by F. Scott himself, but by the woman who has been insulted and treated as a madwoman for so many years, his wife, Zelda. It's strange, but many of his short stories always seemed to have a feminine ring to them. I thought it was me, but it may have has more of a foundation than that. Theresa Anne Fowler has written an extremely readable and informative book which I think should be required reading for any Fitzgerald fan or anyone else looking for a good read..Ms. Fowler covers the years 1918 to 1940 telling the story of the Fitzgerald marriage, even after there was no marriage. I wondered, as I read, "A Moveable Feast" years ago how Hadley Hemingway felt about Ernest, wandering around, enjoying Paris while she stayed home with their son. We learned some answers in "The Paris Wife". Now we have the answers to the same question about Zelda Fitzgerald. Each of these women was talented in her own right, but they each put those talents aside to worship at the altar of their husband's fame. In the end, each was rewarded with poor treatment by those famous men. Hemingway's attitude seemed to be that his wife could be ignored and stepped over. However, Fitzgerald's cruelty was a conscious effort to undermine Zelda whenever her obvious writing talent seemed to compete with his own writings. After reading some of the writing, honestly, attributed to Zelda, I became interested in reading any of her works which had been published. I found a collected works in Amazon's inventory. However, alas, the professional reviews by the usual suspects described her work as mediocre and an attempt to compete with her illustrious husband. This is, in spite of the fact, that it is now recognized that Zelda contributed to some of Scott's work and, as this book reveals, had work published under his name because of his "star quality", shame, shame. The author has included an afterward or writer's note in this book, but she left one fact out. The Fitzgerald's daughter Scottie won a Pulitzer Prize for her book on Vietnam, "The Fire in the Lake". One wonders now from which side of her family the talent to write such a book came.I have read "The Far Side of Paradise" as well as a couple of other biographies of this couple. If you have also done so, I think this book is a "must read" for you. Also, with the issue of a new "Gatsby" film and interest from Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris", it might be time for a publisher to correct the harm which has been done to Zelda's image by releasing a new volume of collected works. If not, do read this book. It will leave a void in your reading experience not to do so.

If you read and like Paula McLain's "Paris Wife"--about Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Elizabeth or "Hadley" as she was better known--then I think you might like Theresa Anne Fowler's new novel about Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott. I think McLain is a more talented writer, but my purpose in reading "Z: a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald" was simply to enjoy another romp through one of my favorite periods, the Roaring Twenties and into the thirties and with the cast of people--Cole Porter, Picasso, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein...--in the form of a fictional account of the people and events.I noted before purchasing the book that a few of those who wrote here a disappointment that the novel--it is a novel after all!--didn't tell many of the facts about Zelda. But since I really don't know many facts about her, I was perfectly content to let this new-to-me author pull me along which she did with some rather good prose in places. Actually the novel got better as I glided through the middle part, almost as though the writer had finally found the voice of Zelda.It is told in first person, and the not-college-educated Zelda's writing credentials are established enough to convince me that she could have written this account. I have a low toleration of first person narrative that seems contrived, that I don't think the narrator capable of writing.What I know of F. Scott Fitzgerald rings true-to-life in the novel. I give it a four-star since I think it is not quite up to "Paris Wife." But it is very readable. And fun to project one's self into some of those days when these greater-than-life personalities lived, partied, and became famous. And I leave it more convinced that in addition to knowing how to write well, great writers also have to become alcoholics.

I absolutely loved this book, was sad when I finished it, and couldn't wait to write about it. Don't let the somewhat slow start deter you because the story picks up steam quickly.Z is similar to The Paris Wife by Paula McLain in that it's a fictional take from a famous author's wife's perspective about a real period of time in their lives. And, Z even covers the same time period as The Paris Wife, but from a different perspective (Zelda's vs. Hadley Hemingway's), so it's especially interesting if you've already read The Paris Wife.The story of Zelda and Scott is a tragic love story carried out amid fame (if not fortune), glitter, clinking champagne glasses, and the literary intelligentsia of the time (Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, etc). And, you truly would never guess this novel takes place during Prohibition based on the amount of alcohol flowing through it...which made for an exciting, but heartbreaking story.Zelda's voice is distinctive through Fowler's writing and I just loved the way she phrases things - the language feels similar to The Great Gatsby's.This book is understandably pro-Zelda. She is portrayed as exciting, modern, misunderstood, and somewhat victimized while Scott comes across as slimy, pretentious, arrogant, petty, jealous, immature, and obsessed with rich people (despite never becoming one himself due to his profligate spending). But, they seem to love each other as much as possible through all that.It was interesting how Scott was portrayed as the first author to truly embrace the modern concept of marketing and P.R. for his writing - he seemed to view his marriage to Zelda as a tool to add mystique to his writing and encouraged her to act like certain characters in his books and stories.Z also provides great fodder for discussion about women retaining their own identities in marriage and motherhood...whether through a career or something else. This strikes me as a very modern topic for the 1920's and is obviously still relevant today. Scott wants Zelda, increasingly against her will, to live a life of hair appointments, parties, and painting lessons that enhances his own image and then puts her down for it later when comparing her "series of low-key amusements" to the importance of his "risky existence" of baring his soul through his writing.Reading Z made me want to re-read The Great Gatsby, as well as Scott's first two novels (This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and the Damned), both of which were initially more successful than Gatsby.Z is a fun, light read for summer, but is also chock full of history and substance.For more reviews, check out my blog, Sarah's Book Shelves.

Great shape

I’ll start off by saying that I really enjoyed reading this book. I love a good historical fiction book, the way it transports you back to the bygone era, to live it all even as a mere “bystander”. Z is a novelisation of Zelda’s life which primarily focuses on the turbulent relationship of the Fitzgerald’s and is a simultaneous representation of the virtues and shortcomings of the Jazz Age.Therese Anne Fowler did a great job with the dialogues and I loved how she created a sense of time and portrayed the intimacy and nuances of relationship(s) and social networking at that time which was evidence for her thorough research for this book. She gave a voice to Zelda which is seldom heard and takes the reader through the life of the “Golden Couple” in all it’s glamour and grandeur and their relationship’s eventual and scandalous decline.I really enjoyed getting pulled back in time to spend time with the likes of Ernest Hemmingway, Lewis and of course The Fitzgerald’s.

Therese Anne Fowler has done extensive research into the lives of the Fitzgeralds. She notes that sources divide into two camps: Team Scott and Team Zelda. She has tried to be as true as possible to the emotional journey of this marriage, and what emerges is a tale that shows the damaging effects on Scott, Zelda and even Zelda’s treating psychiatrists in Switzerland and the US of a way of thinking: patriarchal thinking. It was deemed by many that Zelda’s problems would be alleviated if only she would give up all ambitions to write, paint and dance ballet in order to be the perfect wife, mother and home-maker.These days we pay lip service - in the West at least - to the notion that of course women should have the freedom to develop their talents and skills in any direction they choose. That they are equally deserving of individual fame and fortune. Realistically, this won’t happen until such time as men take equal responsibility for child rearing and housework. Hemingway is of course a main character in the book. His insistence on masculinity and male privilege didn’t work out too well in the end. He suicided in 1961. The talented novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard springs to mind. Married to Waugh, she found herself putting on splendid French meals for any guests he felt like inviting and taking care of all household matters while being consistently disparaged by her husband.Fay Weldon once wrote a brilliant story on this theme. A woman puts a great deal of organisational effort into preparing food, menus and everything else to fit in the car for a weekend away with children and friends. Disaster strikes and she can’t be there to prepare a lunch. A fancy free young woman makes a salad with some of the carefully allotted ingredients. The woman’s husband derides and belittles her for fussing, praising the young woman for her effortless skill, even though the wife now has the problem of how to cater for all the other meals. This may seem trivial, but until men realise just how much talent and skill it takes to run a household and do their fair share of it, women can expect continued derision and under-valuing. Zelda’s story is a variation on this theme. She, like so many others, experienced the heart-breaking tragedy of male dominance. Her hospitalisations, with accompanying dire “treatments” wrecked her health, all because she had the temerity to dream her own dreams. Many of her stories and articles were published jointly in her name and Scott’s, because that way, they’d earn more money. Oh please. This is a very well written book that will fuel your sense of injustice. Beware, though, women. If you speak up, prepare to be trolled.

Questo libro narra, raccontandola in prima persona, la storia della moglie di F.S. Fitzgerald e, inevitabilmente, descrive vividamente i ruggenti anni 20 ed offre un sacco di informazioni biografiche su Fitzgerald e tutto il circolo di scrittori che, vivendo vite dissolute tra gli USA e l'Europa, hanno fatto la letteratura di quegli anni.Per quel che ne so io, si tratta di ricostruzioni molto accurate e plausibili anche nelle parti espressamente inventate dall'autrice, in particolar modo per quanto riguarda il rapporto Fitzgerald- Hemingway.E' realistico anche nel raccontare il dramma personale di Zelda come artista in cerca di affermazione lontano dai riflettori del marito.L'inglese è abbastanza comprensibile per chi è a un livello da ultimo anno di superiori. Dà la possibilità, inoltre, di imparare una buona quantità di vocaboli inusuali.Lo consiglio in particolare alle ragazze appassionate di letteratura, a chi ha amato Firzgerald e vuole approfondire la sua biografia, ma anche a chi vuole una lettura "femminile" da vacanza.A mio avviso è il miglior romanzo mai letto sul personaggio, sicuramente molto meglio di quello di Signorini.

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald lived an exciting life together fuelled by alcohol, in his case an almost unbelievable quantity. Their friends included most of the major literary talents of 1920's America.In this fine novel the author regales us with their steep ascent from the initial success of "This Side of Paradise", via the heady days and nights of New York, their travels to France, and then the decline that set in as money, talent, and luck started to run out. It will not be a new story to many readers but it is written from a new point of view. The author does not 'take sides' but she does write, first person, in Zelda's voice and gives us her perspective. As is the case in life this changes as time passes by and inevitably is more or less reliable. This short life was full of drama, exciting, driven by emotion, ambition, love, and success and failure. Zelda's own needs for fulfilment and her conflicts with her driven, narcissistic, monumentally talented husband are well assimilated. It does not quite read like autobiography because that would normally involve a greater degree of self-justification, which the author avoids.Therese Anne Fowler has extraordinary control over a vast amount of material, giving us a fresh perspective on an oft-repeated tale. For me the novel was a pleasure to read. The production values of "Two Roads" are impeccable.One essay by Elizabeth Hardwick reviewing Nancy Milford's biography of Zelda ("American Fictions" Modern Library 1999), is not mentioned.Hardwick ends by writing:"In the end we feel about Zelda Fitzgerald just what De Quincey felt for Dorothy Wordsworth: "respectful pity."After reading "Z" I could add "considerable admiration" and even "affection." But how Zelda put up with that husband of hers remains a mystery to me!