27 February 2013

Book Review: Z, a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler


I have no idea how real or imagined this novel of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is, but I found it better written and more entertaining than the other two wife-of-a-more-famous-man novels I've read in the last couple of year: The Paris Wife and The Aviator's Wife, not to mention the terrible novel I just couldn't get through, Hemingway's Girl.

Zelda was already a woman determined to cause scandal when she met F. Scott Fitzgerald just shy of her eighteenth birthday in Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda Sayre was from one of the town's first families, full of high spirits and hijinks, drawing attention wherever she went, with only her father's position as judge protecting her reputation from getting seriously marred.  I loved these early chapters--partly because they're set in the South and I had no idea Zelda was Southern and partly because it's heartbreaking  later in her life when she becomes invisible to the man who published his first novel just to prove his worth to her.

Life together is good at first, even exhilarating. Zelda and Scott take New York by storm, becoming the "it' couple, but little does Zelda know that they're living well beyond their means, borrowing money at every turn against expected sales of Scott's writing. Thus they move to Paris to live more cheaply (oh, that we might do that today!), they have a daughter, and generally meet all of the hip Left Bankers.  Those two crazy kids (emphasis on crazy) probably would have muddled along all right, had it not been for one man whom, as a writer, I have very little use for, and as a human being, none at all: Ernest Hemingway.

Scott becomes utterly enthralled to Hemingway and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. Neither, apparently, could Zelda, but that friendship led to dissolution of all kinds.

You know, I understood it better back when William Wordsworth lifted whole passages from his sister Dorothy's journal and claimed them as his own work--I didn't like it, but I understood it for the time.  But F. Scott Fitzgerald did the same to his wife in the 1920s and 1930s, which means I know exactly what that initial "F' stands for, and it ain't Francis, if you know what I mean.

It's Fuckhead.  Or Fuckwad.  (I wanted to make sure you knew exactly what I mean).

Not only that, but Scott claimed authorship of at least one published short story and one essay that were solely Zelda's work. The novel claims more than those two instances, but my independent research [read: Wikipedia] corroborates at least these, and later when Zelda was locked up in the loony bin sanitorium, she produced a novel in a little over one month.  For comparison's sake, Scott had been working on The Beautiful and the Damned for about six years, and it was only after changing one of the characters and creating her dialogue largely from Zelda's letters that he was able to get that published. He insisted on having editorial say over Zelda's novel (which had already been accepted by Scribner's) before it was published, eliminating any parts that might reflect badly on him. Which is to say, most of them, as Zelda's novel, like Scott's previous ones, was autobiographical in many ways.

I wasn't cursing Scott for being an asshole the same way I did when cursing Hemingway whilst reading The Paris Wife, but in a different way. While this novel paints Zelda (and quite rightly as it's her book) as a brilliant, misguided, but sympathetic woman, reading between the lines made me feel sympathy for Scott, too.  They were children who never grew up, both eager to prove themselves beyond the conventions of their time, both with a touch of mental instability, both lending their trust to people undeserving of it. Both bright and burning with talent but living in a time where the wife's successes had to take a backseat to the husband's. Both living lives cut short, their collaboration bookended by the two wars.

I wasn't aware of loving this book while I was reading it, but I've thought of little else since I put it down a couple of days ago. I even talked on and on about the book and the Fitzgeralds to my husband last night at dinner, and I'm still very curious to know more about both Zelda and Scott.  If that's one of the points of fiction, to linger in the mind of the reader, prompting action of some sort, then Therese Anne Fowler's novel is a successful one.

NB: This book will be published in April 2013 by St. Martin's.  I read an advance reading copy provided to me by my sales rep upon my request.

19 comments:

  1. I had been wanting to read both this and Zelda's book Save Me the Waltz and am encouraged by your review. Also, is your comment message new or have I been on Mars? I love it!

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    1. My comment message is old, BUT it was your comment message years ago that prompted me to put something there. :)

      This morning once I got to work, I tried to order a copy of ANYTHING that Zelda wrote but they're a little hard to come by, at least as new books. Grrr.

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  2. I like the cover of this one.

    "Scott becomes utterly enthralled to Hemingway" Ugh. I just...ugh. Damn Hemingway. He ruins everything.

    And this totally makes me want to read a Zelda biography.

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    1. Hemingway ruins almost everything he touches. Makes me wonder if pharmacology could have (1) saved his life, and (2) saved the lives of all of those other people he ruined. I rather loathe him. But I will admit under duress that I like his book A Moveable Feast.

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    2. This whole comment makes me so happy.

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  3. I am a devoted Zelda fangirl, and while I like Scott's novels, I am not a fan of the man (nor Hemingway). I'm a little anxious to pick this up but less so after your review. (It sounds like Zelda is treated more fairly than, say, Woody Allen did in Midnight in Paris which almost made me a lather-y mess at the theater.)

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    1. Zelda is definitely treated sympathetically in this book. Then again, she almost has to be, since the novel is written in 1st person. Reading this book makes me want to read more from both Fitzgeralds.

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    2. There's an exhibit of her art in North Carolina that ends in March and I was hoping to combine a visit with my mom and it but alas, it won't be happening. I'm devastated!

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    3. Oh, that's too bad. I'd definitely go out of my way to see a Zelda exhibit, now that I know a little about her.

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  4. Hmm, this is the second 'liked but not loved' review I've seen of this book. Maybe I'd be better off with a good biography?

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    1. I guess it depends on what you're looking for. For me, reading the novel was definitely the better jumping off point, but I was so interested in the "character" of Zelda that it makes me want to read more--both by her and about her. So while I wasn't aware of loving the book as I was reading it, there was clearly something about it that really hooked me. Maybe I'll go back and clarify my wording in the review.

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  5. I'd love to read this...am adding it to my WishList :) I've also had The Paris Wife sitting on my TBR shelf for far too long :) Thanks for the reminder!

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  6. Is there a touch of assistance from Zelda in "The Great Gatsby"?...(one of my long-time favorites.) It could explain the insight into the female characters. Great review of "Z" and it's now on my list from the library.

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    1. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Gatsby bears Zelda's touch.

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  7. Oooh I'm so glad you reviewed this! I was struck by the cover immediately; so gorgeous. I knew Zelda was loony, er, mentally unstable, and that the marriage was a mess but I was totally ignorant of the fact that Fitzgerald ripped off Zelda. Is that true?! That's just so sad and pathetic. I love hating Hemmingway but I don't much like hating Fitzgerald too. Strange; I can forgive him his personal failures with his wife but the idea that he would steal her work and pass it off as his own?! Unforgivable.
    By the way I love your ebullient and creative use of the F-word. It worked exactly as an expletive, UNdeleted, should!

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    1. While I'm quite certain that Scott wouldn't have viewed it as "ripping her off," I think it's pretty much established fact that he did exactly that. How much of the novel was exact I don't know, but there are biographies out there that would show where the line was drawn between the novel and her real life.

      I don't like to use too many expletives in the blog--they lose meaning after a while AND they draw the attention of spammers, but I just had to in this case.

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  8. I want to read this so badly! I am first in line at the library when it comes out.
    The Zelda/F Scott relationship is so darn interesting. You should definitely read Save Me The Waltz, if you can find it. It's a good read and it's so fascinating to see the crossover between F Scott in her novel and Zelda in his novels.

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    1. lindsey, when i got to work yesterday morning I tried to order a copy of Save Me the Waltz and it was unavailable new. I suspect that it will be reprinted now that TWO novels about Zelda are pubbing this spring.

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  9. I've been seeing a lot on this one all of the sudden but yours is the first review. I am kind of looking forward to this one. It's not my usual fare, but Zelda Fitzgerald is definitely intriguing.

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Please, sir, may I have some more? (Comments, that is!)