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A biographical novel set across the USA and France (this side of paradise)

25th October 2019

Z: A novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler, a biographical novel set across the USA and France.

A biographical novel set across the USA and France

This a novel I plucked from the TF bookshelf. It is a cover that has always caught my eye and the time has finally come to read and review it!

Zelda Sayre is turning 18 and just a short time prior to that momentous event she meets F Scott Fitzgerald. Much to her father’s consternation this “Irish Yankee pup, who enjoys liquor too much” not only catches her eye but organises her coming-of-age party, when her Mother was gearing up to stage it. Scott Fitzgerald is convinced he will become a successful writer and she seems happy to go along for the ride, as it were. And of course we know he does.

Their fortunes blossom and they wither. Money comes and goes, profligate expenditure is met with periods of impecuniousness. His writing reflects their situation – The Beautiful and The Damned is a story of a young society couple so indolent and overindulged that they ruin themselves.

There are indications that domestic violence become part and parcel of the relationship. Soon they have a baby girl. Zelda holds out for calling her Patricia (the name agreed upon by both parents prior to her birth) but Scottie is the name that sticks, at F Scott Fitzgerald’s behest. It is becoming evermore evident that his narcissistic personality is becoming more pronounced and crushing his wife.

This is a great portrayal – based much on fact, clearly gleaned through assiduous research – of a couple relationship involving two people who had never fully matured into functioning and well-rounded adults. Scott Fitzgerald, although smitten in the early days with Zelda, could not remain faithful to her and was, for the most part, a functioning alcoholic – and at times downright drunk and out of it. He belittled his wife, had little respect for the mother of his daughter and as the years passed his bullying nature affected Zelda’s mental equilibrium. He was in thrall to Ernest Hemingway, who at first, it seems, was fond of Zelda but at some point took against her and that just prompted Scott Fitzgerald to behave in an increasingly shabby way. Hemingway was no saint and the pair seemed to feed off each other as they destroyed those around them in the pursuit of artistic acclaim. Zelda too, on occasion, would give as good as she got.

This account of their years together moves along nicely, in a linear trajectory as the months and years pass. The couple moves back and forth the between part of the USA and the South of France and Paris and at times the novel feels like a blow by blow account of the journeys, their settling into a new abode, who they met along the way and then how they uprooted themselves again; to wit…This happened.. then that happened… then they moved on…. Consequently the narrative could get a little bogged down. The timeline took precedence, I feel, at the expense of a more immersive exploration of the characters’ interactions. It is nevertheless a very well-crafted novel, with good writing and it tackles a very interesting period of history. Indeed, it was enriching to see Zelda as the central protagonist of the particular jazz-age set, who spent many Summers vacationing on the Côte d’Azur. This Side of Paradise, as per the title of this post, was Scott Fizgerald’s first novel and seems to sum up the ambiguity of their lives – a paradisiacal lifestyle with peaks and troughs, heady excess and out of control behaviour. A recipe for disaster.

To complement this novel, I would suggest The Paris Wife by Paula McLain which tells the story of Hadley, Ernest Heminway’s first wife.

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