“When I saw that Amazon Prime was unveiling its original pilot for Z, a biographical series based on Therese Anne Fowler’s novel about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, I raised a wary eyebrow. . . But I was wrong, oh me of little faith. . . I]t’s an enveloping period piece, perfectly cast, and I would like to see the pilot green-lighted into a series so that we can see this romance go up like a rocket … like a rocket with one loud champagne pop and strew debris across mansion lawns and luxury hotel lobbies in its transcontinental path.” Vanity Fair
I wish I could tell everyone who thinks we’re ruined, Look closer and you’ll see something extraordinary, mystifying, something real and true. We have never been what we seemed.
When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.
What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.
Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous sometimes infamous husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it.
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I love reading about Zelda Fitzgerald. For me, she has always seemed a woman far beyond her own time. She was headstrong and brilliant. She could manipulate with the best of them, playing up her southern charms whenever need be. She was truly one of a kinda and her story is both hauntingly sad and terribly romantic. I thoroughly enjoyed this fictionalized portrait of her and specifically her marriage to Scott. The research and depth that the author was willing to take truly sucked me in and wouldn’t let go. A great read start to finish and as Z herself put it in the beginning, if you look close, it’s not at all what it seems.
There is a series out now on Amazon which is based on this novel, but I read Z back when the novel was first published. I was drawn in immediately by the synopsis. I am fascinated by history, specifically the Jazz Age, and I especially like stories about real writers from the 1800s and 1900s. Even so, Z proved to be so much more than I could have hoped for. It pivots the spotlight off the acclaimed F. Scott Fitzgerald and shines it on his wife, Zelda.
Most people who have heard of Zelda Fitzgerald remember her mostly for being the wife of a prestigious author. Those who know a little more about her remember her for going mad. Z, however, offers a fresh look at this vibrant and fascinating woman who spent her entire adult life in the shadow of the man she loved. Stylish and bold, Zelda was also a writer and a creative spirit. She saw so much and did so much, and yet she is not remembered for any of it. With Z, Theresa Anne Fowler corrects a mistake that history made. She gives us the life of Zelda Fitzgerald. She gives us the story of an incredible woman. Truly, she has done us a great service in writing this novel. There is simply nothing else like it.
This was an engrossing read told from the point of view of Zelda Fitzgerald. The author obviously did meticulous research, wrote captivating dialogue, and kept the story moving. I look forward to her next one!
I’ve read many novels about Hemingway and others of the so-called Lost Generation, who lived and created works of art and literature in Paris during the 1920s. In addition, I love THE GREAT GATSBY, so it was natural that I was drawn to this book. I knew that Scott Fitzgerald had not been considered all that successful in his writing career as a whole, and I’d heard mention of Zelda’s mental health issues. I wanted to know more.
In that aspect, I was not disappointed. The author depicts the settings, society, and culture of all the places and times featured in the book very well, starting with Zelda’s life before Scott and she never misses a beat. Although this is a fictionalized account, it feels very real and authentic. I liked Zelda and Scott and found them both sympathetic characters. As things spiraled downward, I felt nothing but sympathy for these two dreamers who lived in a complex and competitive world.
My only reason for giving the book a four-star rating is that for some reason, I didn’t feel the connection between Scott and Zelda as strongly as I’d hoped to. I wanted to feel drowned in their feelings for each other, and for some reason I didn’t. In contrast, in THE SECRET LIFE OF MRS. LONDON, a novel about Jack London’s wife, I was swept away and my heart broke along with the main character’s. Z didn’t completely captivate me in that way, but it is still a very good historical novel.
My heart! I feel so strongly for Zelda after reading this novel – the misunderstood, the unappreciated, the neglected and often abused wife of a tortured literary genius. It is indeed a question, who ruined whom, but I feel if Zelda and Scott met in our times, they’d make a great team instead of turning their marriage into something so incredibly toxic and tragic. How wonderful it would have been if, instead of berating her and committing her to a sanitarium for wanting to have a life (read, career) of her own, Scott supported Zelda instead and cheered her accomplishments with the same zeal he cheered his friend’s Hemingway’s. And how much healthier and happier their marriage would have been if Zelda was her own person outside marriage – I bet none of her mental health problems would have occurred in the first place and Scott would have been a much happier husband with a happy wife. Who knows how productive he would have been when in healthy competition with his wife?
“Z” is a novel full of jazz, famous names, parties, mad love, fights, alcoholism, searching for oneself, and, ultimately, self-destruction. It’s beautiful and tragic, it’s incredibly raw and wistful and what’s most important, it makes you think and to me, it’s one of the best things a well-written novel can offer. If I could give it more than five stars, I would. Absolutely brilliant!
Having read the Paris Wife, which is the story of Hemingway’s years in Paris and his marriage to Hadley Richardson. I found It interesting to juxtapose the two authors’ interpretations of the women and their marriages to these two enigmatic iconic authors. They couldn’t have been more different. Zelda’s enduring legacy has never been presented, or at least I have never read her presented in this manner before. For once, I understood why Scott fell in love with her, and how he systematically helped destroy her. Yes, the Fitzgerald’s were both damaged, self-destructive, etc., but they were also loving, human, brilliant, and fascinating. I enjoyed every minute of this book, even though I wanted to give a good slap to most of the characters at one point or another.
Fascinating. I did wonder how Zelda could be so effortlessly excellent at everything, but it did make me curious to know more about her, and about her connections to other artists of her day.
I like to read fiction accounts of real people
Zelda was a smart Southern girl
She wrote articles and some were attributed to her husband F Scott Fitzgerald
this book! I could not put it down. Took me from loving the relationship between Z and Scott to being so sad at the ending. I truly felt for Z, but totally get the era. She was a woman ahead of her time. The author did a great job of marrying her research and facts with what she felt would be Z and Scott’s conversations and letters. Highly recommend this one
It was interesting to read about Zelda’s perceptions of their marriage. I couldn’t really get hooked into this book, though
Good peek into the life of the Fitzgerald’s.
Very interesting to read things from Zelda’s point of view.
I loved this fresh insight into Zelda’s life. Also, this gave a great sense of their times and lifestyle and the famous people that impacted their world.
First a disclaimer – I’m a sucker for all the ‘Lost Generation’ stories and authors and it’s such a rich subject there’s always some new angle on Hemingway and his drinking buddies. I was aware of Zelda Fitzgerald from The Moveable Feast and had a vague notion of her having spent some time in an asylum, but this fictional novel of her life and marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald was riveting. A Southern belle from Montgomery who had more talent than could be easily managed in a traditional marriage; Zelda soon discovered that women in the early 20th century were getting short shrift. Rejecting the better-elaborated ideas of her ‘feminist’ friends, she struggled to balance the demands and fragile ego of her famous husband with her own writing, painting and ballet at significant personal cost. Antagonist Hemingway comes out the loser in this account and I’m afraid it’s forever changed how I feel about him.
I really loved this book. It took me into the lives of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda was a woman after my own heart, her misdiagnosed mental illness, her drive, her patience. An incredible look into life in that era.
I read this book when it first came out and loved it!
This was a really well written version of the Fitzgerald’s lives. I was really drawn to the character of Zelda, and Enjoyed the creativity of theirs lives while still sticking to the facts of the story.
I didn’t think I’d like this book to be honest but it was wonderful!