Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald

by Matthew J. Bruccoli

Epic, and the definitive biography of Fitzgerald, plain and simple. An absorbing story of one of the great figures in American literature.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir, American History, 20th Century, Memoir

624 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Matthew Joseph Bruccoli was an American professor of English at the University of South Carolina. He was the preeminent expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald. He also wrote about writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and John O'Hara, and was editor of the 'Dictionary of Literary Biography'.

Bruccoli's interest in Fitzgerald began in 1947 when he heard a radio broadcast of Fitzgerald's short story 'The Diamond as Big as the Ritz'. That week he tracked down a copy of 'The Great Gatsby', "and I have been reading it ever since," he told interviewers. Bruccoli graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1949, and studied at Cornell University where one of his professors was Vladimir Nabokov and at Yale University where he was a founder member of the fledgling Manuscript Society, graduating in 1953. He was awarded a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Virginia in 1960. Bruccoli, who also taught at the University of Virginia and the Ohio State University, spent nearly four decades teaching at the University of South Carolina. He lived in Columbia, South Carolina, where, according to his New York Times obituary, he "cut a dash on campus, instantly recognizable by his vintage red Mercedes convertible, Brooks Brothers suits, Groucho mustache and bristling crew cut that dated to his Yale days. His untamed Bronx accent also set him apart" (Grimes).

Over the course of his career, he authored over 50 books on F. Scott Fitzgerald and other literary figures. His 1981 biography of Fitzgerald, Some 'Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald', is considered the standard Fitzgerald biography. He has edited many of Fitzgerald's works, from 'This Side of Paradise' to Fitzgerald's unfinished final novel, 'The Love of the Last Tycoon'. Bruccoli has also edited Scott's wife Zelda Fitzgerald's only novel 'Save Me the Waltz'.

While studying Fitzgerald, Bruccoli and his wife Arlyn began to collect all manner of Fitzgerald memorabilia. Bruccoli owned the artist's copy of Celestial Eyes, the cover art by Francis Cugat which appeared on the first edition, and most modern editions, of The Great Gatsby. In 1969, Bruccoli befriended F. Scott and Zelda's daughter Frances "Scottie" Fitzgerald. In 1976, Bruccoli and the Fitzgeralds' daughter Scottie (as Scottie Fitzgerald Smith) published The Romantic Egoists, from the scrapbooks that F. Scott and Zelda had maintained throughout their lives of photographs and book reviews. Later in life Bruccoli and his wife donated their collection to the Thomas Cooper Library at USC. The collection is valued at nearly $2 million.

Bruccoli was general editor of the 'Pittsburgh Series in Bibliography', published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. As part of this series, he produced 'F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Descriptive Bibliography' and, with Richard Layman, 'Ring W. Lardner: A Descriptive Bibliography' (1976). A working draft of the Lardner book was prepared in the summer of 1973 by Bruccoli.

Along with Richard Layman, a Dashiell Hammett scholar and former graduate assistant, and businessman C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr., Bruccoli launched the 'Dictionary of Literary Biography'. The 400-volume reference work contains biographies of more than 12,000 literary figures from antiquity to modern times.

Bruccoli continued working at the University of South Carolina until being diagnosed with a brain tumor, and died June 4, 2008.

Reviews

[Lisa of Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is The Fitzgerald Biography!

Perhaps the most respected Fitzgerald scholar, Bruccoli spent a lifetime dedicated to studying Fitzgerald, and he is the biographer who most clearly captures Fitzgerald’s essence.

The book is highly addictive, readable, and it is a pleasure to pick up.

Bruccoli also adds in relevant pictures. While it is one thing to know that Zelda Fitzgerald was institutionalized, it is another experience completely to see in a picture the institution set in Switzerland, looking more like a five-star resort nestled beside one of the most beautiful lakes in the world.

The artist’s life is a hard one; Fitzgerald found rejection and ruin throughout his life. Scribner turned down his first novel multiple times—when Scribner finally agreed to publish, it was with the utmost reluctance. Maxwell Perkins, Fitzgerald’s editor, effectively threatened to resign if Scribner didn’t publish someone with the talent of Fitzgerald.

Out of the four novels published during Fitzgerald’s lifetime, The Great Gatsby earned him the least amount of money.

The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – Free through Mel-Cat (Michigan Library System)

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[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would recommend Professor Bruccoli's book to anyone who wants an in depth understanding of Fitzgerald. Some might dismiss the book on the basis that Bruccoli is an unabashed fan. But I would say so what if he's a fan--he's got some great insight in Fitzgerald's psyche. And even though he's a fan, he doesn't (in my opinion) observe Fitzgerald with rose colored glasses.


Fitzgerald was so complex. He could be brutal in his personal relationships, he struggled with demons (mainly alcohol) for most of his life, and yet his writing displays such a high degree of sensitivity. Some passages of his prose have a quality of delicacy and fragility.

Here's one of my favorite descriptive passages from Gatsby:

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I
drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely
knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I
expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion
overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and
ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping
over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally
when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright
vines as though from the momentum of its run.


What a dynamic description of mere lawn!

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://thebestbiographies.com/2021/0...

Published in 1981, “Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald” is Matthew Bruccoli’s seminal work. Bruccoli was a professor of English at the University of South Carolina and the preeminent authority on F. Scott Fitzgerald. During his four-decade career he wrote and edited dozens of books on Fitzgerald and other notable literary figures (such as Ernest Hemingway and John O’Hara). Bruccoli died in 2008 at the age of 76.

Widely regarded as the definitive biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, this cradle-to-grave review is sweeping, thorough, penetrating and remarkably gripping. With a 589-page narrative and extensive appendices and notes, readers will walk away from this biography intimately familiar with nearly every aspect of the life of this tempestuous, brilliant, flawed and short-lived talent whose best-known works include The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise.

Bruccoli spent much of his life studying, editing and writing about Fitzgerald, and early in his career he became friends with Fitzgerald’s daughter. So it is unsurprising that Bruccoli’s biography exudes a decidedly sympathetic tone. Fitzgerald’s numerous flaws and failures, however, receive no shortage of attention. In fact, they are effectively the glue holding the book’s sixty-one chapters together.

The narrative is notable for its scholarly (rather than lyrical) edge, but while it lacks the colorful quality of the most animated biographies, it does a superb job placing the reader “in the moment.” Bruccoli’s frequent use of (often lengthy) portions of Fitzgerald’s letters to friends and family provides piercing insight into his state of mind. And after years of studying his subject it seems likely that Bruccoli understood Fitzgerald even better than Fitzgerald knew himself.

This biography contains just enough social, cultural and historical context to place its subject (and his often self-destructive tendencies) within the framework of his time. To the clear benefit of the reader it also devotes extraordinary attention to Fitzgerald’s wife and his other notable personal and professional relationships.

But the most interesting aspect of this book may be the way Bruccoli continually connects people and events in Fitzgerald’s past to characters and circumstances appearing in his literary works. The interconnection between the novelist’s life and his art – not always obvious at first glance – is fascinating.

Some readers may worry that an English degree is necessary to fully enjoy this biography. If that was true I might have found the narrative uncomfortably daunting. That proved not to be the case. The book’s themes prove universal and the elements of Fitzgerald’s life which receive the most focus are those which could lie at the heart of almost any captivating life-story.

But the narrative is fact-heavy – particularly with names of a broad assortment of people Fitzgerald encountered at one time or another. In addition, the narrative occasionally devolves into a mechanistic review of various short stories Fitzgerald wrote and attempted to publish during a particular period of time.

More often than not, however, “Some Sort of Epic Grandeur” feels like the uncommonly thoughtful and incisive book Robert Caro might have written had he taken on F. Scott Fitzgerald rather than Lyndon B. Johnson…or Robert Moses.

Overall, Matthew Bruccoli’s biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald is a wonderfully illuminating exploration of one of the 20th century’s best writers. Anyone with a fascination for Fitzgerald or his literature will find this book inherently compelling. But even general readers are likely to discover this biography provides a wonderful combination of depth and insight about a fabulously interesting individual.

Overall rating: 4½ stars

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was just going back through this pulling bookmarked quotes and realized I never actually reviewed on here - this is essentially the definitive FSF biography, and with good reason: the breadth and scope and collection of primary sources (so many letters and notes and photos I'd never seen - extremely exciting for me as a Fitzgerald obsessive who thought she'd seen just about everything) are unparalleled. I have nothing on Bruccoli, though - he was the world's foremost Fitzgerald scholar as well as a friend of his daughter Scottie. Basically Scott's #1 superfan. To that end, my singular complaint about this book is that Bruccoli's biases toward Scott and against Zelda are sometimes cringingly apparent - I'd recommend balancing that out with a read of Nancy Milford's "Zelda" to get the other side of the story.

[Brian Budzynski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a re-read, which is not a common circumstance with me w/r/t non-fiction (though it is for fiction), biography in particular, as I usually err toward Updike's notion that a biography is a posthumous form of secondhand dishonesty--but this is the finest biography I have ever read, and one that redresses many misconceptions about the subject, as did the Carver bio, which was published a few years back.

[Elisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is regarded as the definitive biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald and therefore, when I saw it in my university's library, I knew that I had to read it immediately. Despite my fascination with all things Fitzgerald, I'd yet to have read a biography of him, and this seemed like a good place to start. It didn't disappoint me in the slightest.

Even though I already knew a lot of the details of Fitzgerald's life, it was so nice to finally sit down and read an official life story about him, one which addressed the myths and provided me with an even greater insight into this amazing man's life than I was prepared for. Parts of this reaffirmed my absolute adoration of Fitzgerald; parts of this made me question my love for him (because he said and did a lot of things during his lifetime that I was previously unaware of and am uncomfortable with). However, what Bruccoli truly succeeds in creating here is a portrait of a deeply flawed man who knew he was destined for greatness and ruined himself on the path to that. Many sections of this book left me deeply emotional, which I wasn't expecting. This is more than just a simple accumulation of facts; this is a tragically told story of a life that was marred by astronomical expectations. What a wonderful way to start my further reading into Fitzgerald.

The final word here has to go to Bruccoli, who concludes this book so simply and yet so beautifully:

"F. Scott Fitzgerald is now permanently placed with the greatest writers who ever lived, where he wanted to be all along. Where he belongs."

[Christopher]

First, a confession of bias: I am an F. Scott Fitzgerald nut. To me, there is no one in 20th Century letters that writes with such compelling grace and honesty, no one who wrote in such a way with such flippant disregard. Of all my literary gods, he sits highest on Olympus for me.



That being said, when I undertook SOME SORT OF EPIC GRANDEUR by Matthew J. Bruccoli, I was thrilled and excited to sink my teeth into the life of Fitzgerald. And I was not dissappointed. Bruccoli mixes details with speed-- it's impossible to get bogged down but it's also impossible to walk away from the biography with only a superficial understanding of the man.



Another compliment to Bruccoli: he remains scholarly the entire time. Never in the biography does he stoop down to cast judgement on Fitzgerald, yet at the same time, he never over-glorifies Fitzgerald into some romanticized character that cannot be touched by we mere humans. Mor than anything, Bruccoli reserves analysis for the reader, and to say the least, this assures us that Bruccoli is honest, revealing every insecurity and short-coming while coupling these less than satisfactory traits with that personality of idealistic struggle that was at least part of Fitzgerald's core.



Here, there is no gossip. There is no superficial anecdote. There is only the facts surrounding the man, and while the use of facts may strip Fitzgerald of a false intimacy with the reader, the facts retain the honor of the man, something that every biographer of great men should attempt to achieve.

[Bernard Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew Bruccoli's biography on one of the greatest novelists this world has ever known is a must read for anyone with an interest F. Scott Fitzgerald and his work. Bruccoli assembles a history and a text primarily from letters to and from the great author. (As a side-note, Fitzgerald's letters are an incredible joy to read and are collected in Bruccoli's book "A Life in Letters") The narrative that he weaves re-contexulizes Fitzgerald from gifted writer turned Hollywood hack, to a much sadder melancholy man, fully aware of his shortcoming and failures and always yearning to be a better writer.

Bruccoli's covers quite a bit of ground in the authors life but doesn't waste a sentence. As a biographer he seems to know what you want: information about Fitzgerald; and what you don't want — long, billowy text on the decay of Fitzgerald in his later years.

Fitzgerald's love for his wife Zelda, his friendship (and its downfall) with contemporary and rival Hemingway, and his trips to Hollywood are all given ample detail and attention. Bruccolli takes the myths of Fitzgerald and verifies facts from hyperbole. He manages to paint a complete picture of a great man without sentimentality.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best of all the Fitzgerald biographies. Matthew Bruccoli is a gift to all of us FSF fans.

[Brian Bess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some sort of epic fail

One of the appendices of Matthew J. Bruccoli’s 1981 (2002 for 2nd edition) biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald is a genealogy of their ancestors by his daughter Scottie Fitzgerald dating back to the1600’s. It is not surprising that many of these ancestors were distillers of alcohol, many of them overindulging in their own product, considering the fact that Scott was almost predestined to be an alcoholic. Although he rationalized his addiction by telling himself that alcohol enhanced his literary productivity it was also the major curse in his life, making him his own worst enemy. Nevertheless, it formed a major part of his self-identity at least since the time he was an undergraduate at Princeton University.

He began his writing career when he was attending a boys’ private school and writing stories for the school paper. This helped solidify his concept of himself as a “romantic egoist”, a phrase that became the original title of what became his first published novel, ‘This Side of Paradise’.

During the time after he graduated and joined the army and was stationed in Montgomery, Alabama, he met a kindred party animal spirit, Zelda Sayre. For a while, they had compatible temperaments and joined their destinies in marriage. The marriage worked well at first as Scott became successful as a published author through stories sold to a variety of publications, some not able to pay as much as others such as the Saturday Evening Post. While he had the ambition to be a literary writer, he had the fortuitous ability to tailor his writing to mass audience that the Post wanted, which usually required at least a happy ending. When ‘This Side of Paradise’ was published it sold well immediately and he became a celebrity and his and Zelda’s partying hijinks made them the equivalent of tabloid fodder today. His writing pattern of publishing a few stories that would pay him enough to take some time to devote to a novel worked for his first three novels. Most of this work, while worthwhile, consisted of subject matter that was derived from his and Zelda’s own life. After Zelda became pregnant and their daughter Scottie was born they traveled to Paris, the fashionable destination for expatriate writers and artists, where living expenses were generally very affordable and there was a stimulating community of very creative people. It was here where he first met Ernest Hemingway, who became one of his best writer friends, for a while, and the writer whose literary judgment he trusted the most.

It was while living in Europe that he completed his third published novel, ‘The Great Gatsby’, the first and only novel where all the elements seemed to converge in perfect balance. Although it did not bring him a great deal of money it was critically very well received and cited as the book that solidified his reputation as one of the best writers of his generation.

During these years, however, Scott’s and Zelda’s partying escalated and Scott, in particular, became a mean drunk and caused them to get kicked out of bars, restaurants, and parties. Zelda’s mental instability grew more excessive and she was diagnosed as schizophrenic after a few attempts at suicide. Their financial stability worsened with the excessive spending, with Scott beginning a pattern of repeated borrowing from both his agent, Harold Ober, and his editor, Max Perkins. This pattern necessitated him writing some mediocre to bad stories purely for the money, which started a vicious cycle.

With both parents dysfunctional, Scottie was sent to girls’ schools and eventually long stays with Ober and his wife, who became her surrogate parents. Scott kept hoping that his next novel would equal or exceed ‘Gatsby’, but the instability of his alcoholism, Zelda’s mental illness and expensive medical bills, Scottie’s school expenses, and general bad spending habits kept breaking any momentum he might have established on writing what eventually became ‘Tender is the Night’, eventually published nine years after ‘Gatsby’ in 1934. ‘Tender is the Night’ did not solve any of the problems that Scott hoped it would. It neither sold as well nor did it receive the critical acclaim he hoped it would.

Bruccoli has some advantages as a biographer in that Fitzgerald was a very thorough record-keeper, maintaining a ledger for the work he did each year, and the payments earned for every individual story, including an overall assessment of that year, until 1936, when he went to Hollywood to write for “easy” cash when his output trailed off. His alcoholic instability damaged his reputation as a dependable writer. During these Depression years, all writers were affected to various extents and even the well-paid writers like Fitzgerald had to settle for less. Both Ober and Perkins finally reached their limits of extending Scott’s credit and declared that the supply was cut off. Also, much of the work Fitzgerald was submitting for publication was substandard and inevitably rejected.

Bruccoli points out a few features about Fitzgerald that I was not aware of, such as the fact that he was an ardent history buff and had several volumes of works of history on his bookshelves. He was also a fan of H.G. Wells, probably more interested in Wells’ works of social realism rather than his scientific romances as they were referred to at the time. He particularly loved ‘The Outline of History’. How did the historical reading affect his own fiction? He tried writing a few stories with historical settings but Bruccoli says they were some of the worst writing he ever produced.

The transition from the 20’s to the 30’s was difficult for everyone but in Fitzgerald’s case it affected the reception to his fiction. Readers who had difficulty paying bills at all were no longer receptive to stories about characters that could afford to travel overseas repeatedly and give lavish parties. Yet those characters were who he knew best and were the characters he could write about with the most authority.

Although Bruccoli is an unabashed fan, he is not above pointing out flaws both in Fitzgerald’s character or in his writing. As suited to each other as they were, Scott and Zelda became poison for each other. Alcoholism and schizophrenia were a deadly mix. Although they never divorced, they never lived together after the last time Zelda was committed to a mental hospital. Even apart from her, Scott had the triple maladies of alcoholism, progressive tuberculosis as well as heart disease, dying just before Christmas of 1940.

Although one could read a few other biographies and glean some insight, if you just read one F. Scott Fitzgerald biography, ‘Some Sort of Epic Grandeur’ should be it. It covers almost all aspects of his life as well as his work and provides a background on the circumstances that led to publication and rejection of his works, as well as appendices such as the previously mentioned genealogy compiled by his daughter, a movie treatment of a proposed film version of ‘Tender is the Night’ and a comprehensive list of all his of published work as well as a transcription of his ledger. It is the definitive biography.

[Christopher Whalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t read many biographies but it’s clear that this is a masterpiece. It does for Fitzgerald what Richard Ellmann did for James Joyce. I learned so much about an author I have loved since the sixth form: how much he relied on the income from short stories to pay for his lifestyle; his alcoholism; his fraught relationship with Hemingway; his separation from Zelda; his loving, hectoring, lecturing letters to his daughter, Scottie; his visits to the French Riviera (I read many of these pages on the beaches of Juan-les-Pins in Antibes, inspired by how he wrote about the place in “Tender is the Night”); his stints in Hollywood; his “College of One” tutoring of girlfriend Sheilah Graham late in life; his 16-year correspondence with a fan; his Gatsby-like “Ledger”, meticulously recording his income from writing and major life events; how little he made from his novels during his lifetime; his poor academic record at Princeton; his debts and borrowing; how terrible his spelling was. Highly readable and scholarly. An impressive achievement.

[Frank Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that we had an original idea to do whatever we wanted in the sixties. It looks like the twenties did start the whole thing. In this book, you will learn about Fitzgerald's wife Zelda, and her mental health struggles, not to mention his. Fitzgerald had a lot to say to his daughter about her education; the title of the book comes from a letter to her from him. I learned about the preliminary writing he did in his notebooks for a novel. That method was never explained to me in a writing class. There is a good compendium of his letters here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Several others writers such as Hemingway figure in the story. This is worth reading, for a number of reasons.

[Dan Pecchenino · Rating 5 out of 5]

While it is generally true that a biography is only as interesting as the life of its subject will allow, a well-written biography can transform a fascinating life into a consequential one. SOME SORT OF EPIC GRANDEUR rises to this level, turning Fitzgerald's notoriously vagabond and sad story into a lens through which we are able to view the artistic marketplace of the 1920s and 1930s.

For a slightly longer review, please go here: http://yetanothercocktailparty.wordpr...

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Startlingly complete. Read this biography and, for all their various charms, the others will begin to seem familiar to you—because I'm not sure Bruccoli left a single source or kind-of-source out of "Some Sort of Epic Grandeur." You could probably write a satisfying new biography of Fitzgerald without citing anything else.

Tone-wise, Bruccoli's an unabashed defender of Fitzgerald's work and life—he's not a booster, but he's determined that the art Fitzgerald left us is more important—on a basic level, deserving of more page space—than the more sordid details of his life.

[Lisa Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I'm sort of at a loss for words for how deeply I felt this reading experience. This was everything I knew about Fitzgerald from my personal study of Gatsby - his early life and career and courtship of Zelda - but I was fascinated to learn more about the latter years of Fitzgerald's life and his decline and downfall. Bruccoli's writing is reverential and informative without being stuffy, and there is so much depth in Scott and Zelda that they come to life on the page. I'm beyond grateful to have read this, and it only makes me love Fitzgerald that much more.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad to think that those who see Great Gatsby this year will think that it reflects his life style. Though far from mediocre, his life was a constant struggle; real success and appreciation came too late.
This book is a thorough account of the highs and lows.
A story that deserves to be read by those thriving on the Jay and Daisy hype!

[Lenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very explicit detailed account of Fitzgerald's mostly depressed existence.Zelda,Scott and Scotty, their daughter had to be the most disfunctional trio in history!

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haven’t read this since college. Wanted to go back and soak up the Jazz Age one more time.

[Lloyd Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always loved the sad life story of Scott Fitzgerald…as well as his problematic friendship with Hemingway.

[Mark Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew J. Bruccoli was the leading scholar on the life and work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During his long career, Bruccoli wrote or edited over 30 books related to Fitzgerald. Bruccoli’s biography of Fitzgerald, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Lift of F. Scott Fitzgerald was originally published in 1981. Bruccoli updated the book in 1991 and again in 2002. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur is the definitive biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, in part because of Bruccoli’s masterful command of the facts of Fitzgerald’s life.

Bruccoli traces Fitzgerald’s life from his birth in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1896, to his death in Hollywood in 1940. He keeps track of Fitzgerald’s peripatetic lifestyle, and one of the most useful tools is the chronology in the beginning of the book that traces Scott and Zelda’s movements from one place to another.

Some Sort of Epic Grandeur is a sympathetic biography of Fitzgerald, but that doesn’t mean that Bruccoli makes excuses for Scott’s behavior. By all accounts, Fitzgerald was a charming man when sober. When he drank, however, his personality totally changed and he was often aggressive and belligerent. Bruccoli doesn’t revel in stories about Scott’s alcoholic dissipation, but he doesn’t downplay it either.

Bruccoli has a deep appreciation for Fitzgerald’s writing, and he’s a good judge of the highs and lows of Fitzgerald’s work. Bruccoli is no fanboy apologist telling you that this obscure short story from 1936 is actually the best thing Scott ever wrote. In fact, Bruccoli is quite critical of Fitzgerald’s short fiction of the mid-1930’s, as Fitzgerald had seemingly lost his creative spark.

Although today Fitzgerald is best-known for his novels The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night, during his lifetime his short stories made him a lot more money. For example, in 1929, Fitzgerald earned $27,000 for eight short stories that he sold to The Saturday Evening Post but he earned just $31.71 in book royalties! Fitzgerald hoped that the money he earned from short stories would buy him time to work on his novels. However, it didn’t always work out that way. As Bruccoli writes, “He was a methodical planner all his professional life, preparing schedules and charts for his work; that he rarely kept to these plans did not discourage him from making them.” (p.143)

One of the enduring myths about Fitzgerald was that he was a “natural writer,” someone who had an abundance of God-given talent, but not the intelligence to make the most out of that talent. Bruccoli soundly punctures that myth, in part by showing what a dedicated editor Fitzgerald was. Fitzgerald made significant changes to The Great Gatsby when it was in galley form, and he persevered through seventeen drafts of Tender Is the Night. (Bruccoli’s very first book about Fitzgerald was The Composition of Tender Is the Night.)

Bruccoli also shows us how Fitzgerald’s own friends and contemporaries denigrated his intelligence. Edmund Wilson, who met Fitzgerald at Princeton, “never broke the habit of patronizing Fitzgerald. Although his affection was genuine, Wilson was unable to believe Fitzgerald was a major writer—in fact, a greater figure than himself.” (p.169)

The Great Gatsby failed to meet Scott’s hopes for a blockbuster best-seller. It sold about 20,000 copies, less than 10% of what it now sells in a year in the United States, and Fitzgerald made more money from selling the movie rights to the novel than he did on royalties. Scott and Zelda’s life, never a model of stability, now took a darker turn. Scott began introducing himself as an alcoholic to people he was meeting for the first time. (p.251) When Zelda felt that Scott was flirting too much with the ballerina Isadora Duncan she threw herself down a flight of stone steps. (p.252) Bruccoli writes of the Fitzgeralds: “Having gone to France to escape the distractions of New York, they now returned to America to escape the dissipations of France.” (p.254) This reminded me of what Scott prophetically wrote in a 1926 letter: “Wherever you go, you take yourselves and your faults with you. In the mountains or in the city, you make the same things happen.” (Fool for Love, by Scott Donaldson, p.172)

Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald in 1933-4, as he was struggling to finish Tender Is the Night:

“Heretofore, despite his self-indulgences, he had believed in his destiny and in his ability to preserve the best part of his genius. Now, struggling with his novel and grinding out unfelt stories, he came to feel that he was starting out all over again without the confident illusions that had sustained him in 1920.” (p.355)

After Zelda’s third mental breakdown in 1934, Scott knew that it was extremely unlikely they would ever live together again. I think that contributed to Scott’s depression during these years and was part of the reason why Fitzgerald’s mid-1930’s short stories are so uneven. Fitzgerald was clearly floundering, searching for material anywhere he could possibly get it. In the same year he published the beautiful and heartfelt novel Tender Is the Night, he was also writing a mediocre and hackneyed screen treatment for George Burns and Gracie Allen titled “Gracie at Sea.” (“Gracie at Sea” was eventually published in the 2017 collection I’d Die for You.)

Bruccoli continually unearths interesting tidbits about Fitzgerald. For example: just before Fitzgerald went to Hollywood in 1937 to work as a screenwriter for M-G-M, he briefly considered an offer to host a radio show that toured college campuses. (p.416) If Fitzgerald could have remained sober, it might have been a decent job for him, since he was funny, intelligent, and charming, but if had been drinking, it would have been a total train wreck.

Fitzgerald worked hard in Hollywood, but he found screenwriting challenging. During the last year of his life, he planned and began writing a novel about a movie producer. At the time of Fitzgerald’s death in December of 1940, he had accumulated more than 1,100 pages of drafts, along with 200 pages of background material. “None of the episodes was regarded as final,” showing again what a painstaking reviser Fitzgerald was. (p.472) The unfinished novel, published in 1941 as The Last Tycoon, was the very beginning of the Fitzgerald revival and reevaluation of his talent.

Fitzgerald was a true artist of remarkable grace and skill, and it seems fitting to let him have the final word. In an April, 1934 letter to H.L. Mencken, Fitzgerald wrote: “It is simply that having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative process.” (p.368)

[sabine · Rating 3 out of 5]

finished on treadmill. what an awful man. abusive, pathetic, weak, unwilling to admit own failure, a bad father and husband and friend. but i will always be the girl who used a line from sleeping and waking as her yearbook quote.

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I am not a great man, but sometimes I think the impersonal and objective quality of my talent and the sacrifices of it, in pieces, to preserve its essential value has some sort of epic grandeur." A few weeks ago I read the book "West of Sunset" by Stewart O'Nan which portrays the last few years of F. Scott Fitzgeral's life. Whenever I read historical fiction I am always curious as to the accuracy of the "facts" around which the story is built. As I researched I found that Mr. O'Nan had done his homework, but I realized I had never done mine. I have lived in Minneapolis for almost 50 years. I have driven and walked by homes and haunts of Fitzgerald, but I had never read a biography of the man. I assumed there were many so I entered "preeminent biography of … " into the search engine. The answer was: "Since its first publication in 1981, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur has stood apart from other biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald for its thoroughness and volume of information." Normally when I read history, I tend to select that latest publication. I am a huge reader of WWII history. Because of new release of classified documents and the opening of Russian and other Eastern European sources, more and more information is entering this area of historical research. When I thought about Fitzgerald, however, I realized that my "rule of thumb" did not apply. Mr. Bruccoli devoted decades of research, collected many documents / memorabilia, and published extensively.... If you want an "anecdotal" biography, this is not the book for you. The volume has 624 pages. Given the quality of publishing in the 1980's it weighs a ton and has not been edited by a computer. It is beautifully written with actual correct grammar. The book has Fitzgerald's infamous "lists", medical information concerning Scott and Zelda that today would be protected by patient confidentiality, yearly income from a personal ledger from 1919 to 1937, and letters to / from Scottie, Zelda, his literary agent, Harold Ober, and his editor at Scribner's, Maxwell Perkins. Bruccoli shows us Fitzgerald as a greatly flawed man. He was, of course, an alcoholic from very early on, an unfaithful husband, a man in constant debt ( largely to Perkins and Ober ) who always borrowed against future work, a harsh father who did not practice what he preached, and basically a not particularly "nice" man. He has characteristics of Gatsby - always aspiring to be part of the "smart / rich" set and chasing some self-created dream. He lived on short stories for almost all of his income. He published only four books from which royalties were miniscule - his royalties for "This Side of Paradise" in 1929 amounted to $4.80 - "The Great Gatsby" - $5.10. His income for the year was $32,448.18. $27,000 came from stories published in the Saturday Evening Post. He was generous to new "unknown" authors such as Ernest Hemingway until they became more famous / successful than he. I found myself wondering why this man with so few "books" to his name became one of the "greatest authors of the 20th century"? I don't have an answer, yet. I read "The Great Gatsby", but cannot review it properly ( in my mind ) because I could not read it with new eyes - I knew virtually every aspect of the story. ( Interestingly I chose a 1995 edition of the book and guess who wrote the commentary - yes, Mr. Bruccoli. ) I want to read at least one of the other books and an edition of his "best" short stories ( if that is possible ) because for me, the jury is still out. One must be careful when setting out on a quest..... Kristi & Abby Tabby

[Quiet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew Bruccoli's gigantic biography of Fitzgerald, "Some Sort of Epic Grandeur," has for long been the most acclaimed, most proofed, and most essential biography of the legendary American writer.

It's a very large book though; the biography itself is a little over 500 pages, while there are 200 pages of notes and sources and quite a lot of other intimidatingly authoritative components.

I've been looking at this book for a while, weary of its size, and only recently tried it---

In two days I read it. The first day I was so blown away with both Fitzgerald's life and Bruccoli's excellent writing that I chowed 300+ pages, and the second day smoothly finished what was left.

If you somehow don't know, Fitzgerald lived a very exciting life and lived during very exciting times. He was an alcoholic and a spender; he was also a good man and worked very hard. He married a woman who was as devotedly in love with him as he her and were recognized as the quintessential romance for a time; she was also to develop schizophrenia and increasingly challenge Fitzgerald's failing grip on reality.

Everything about the Lost Generation is exciting, and Fitzgerald is a key figure. He partied, lived as an expatriate for a while, underwent significant, forceful changes in the depression era, and was surrounded always by other eclectic and just as exciting writers like Hemingway, Parker, Lardner, etc etc.

Fitzgerald also has a rather tragic story as well, and the long, downward dip of his final years paints an emotional, powerful story. While I was mostly thrilled with Fitzgerald's biography, I also felt, earnestly, the need to cool myself down along with Fitzgerald, and carefully, patiently read his declining years which Bruccoli masterfully captures in their every stress, struggle, and doubt.

I am still surprised at how accessible, exciting and downright enjoyable this tome of a biography was. I've already ordered my own copy, as there are so many parts within this biography that really paint vivid and brilliant pictures of the world and people that Fitzgerald held a place with.

Don't let the size frighten you off. Get it off the shelf, and jump in; you're in for a blast.

[Nicole C. (using StoryGraph more these days) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been on my list for a long time, and now that school is out, I can still use my University borrowing privileges for pleasure reading over summer break.

I have a fascination with Scott and Zelda that goes back years. They embody the twenties for me. And when Scott was on his game, he was amazing. (Zelda was ahead of her time - her writings are akin to impressionist paintings). And yet, he could be such a brutal person - to others as well as himself, with his destructive behaviors.

Although I'm sure more recent books have now been written - and the newer edition I have is from 2002 - this biography from Bruccoli is in-depth and immensely readable. You can tell that he admires Scott's work, but doesn't shy away from incidents where Scott was acting like a tool. He doesn't make excuses for him, but does separate the facts from the fiction (some of the more well-known tropes are actually untrue or unverifiable).

Additionally, there are several appendices: a genealogical exploration of the Francis Scott Key connection by Fitzgerald's daughter, Scottie; a chronology of his ledger; and a bibliography of books that were popular and more than likely read by Scott during each year of his publishing life.

In sum, if you're looking for one book to explore Fitzgerald's life and works, make it this one.

[John Blumenthal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in college so it was a long time ago, back when dinosaurs walked the Earth. Regardless of the time factor, Matthew Bruccoli's biography of Scott Fitzgerald is far and away the best one I have ever read and I have read more than a few. Fitzgerald truly comes to life here as do all the others who touched his life --- Zelda of course, Hemingway, his editor at Scribner's, Max Perkins, and his Hollywood paramour, Sheila Graham, among others. The book reads like fiction and it almost feels as if Broccoli was a close friend of his subject. As an author myself, I have always been impressed by Fitzgerald's stunningly natural talent (first drafts of many of his stories were often good enough to publish with only minor editing.) The tragedy of the last years of his life, during which he failed miserably in Hollywood and turned to liquor for solace was written so vividly, it almost made me weep. If you ever plan to read a bio of this great American author, my recommendation would be to choose this one.
#thestrangecourtshipofabigailbird

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This definitive biography by the great Fitzgerald scholar covers the meteoric rise and fall of one of the great prose writers of all time. The Great Gatsby has always been near and dear to my heart, and the short stories are full of such exquisite prose that I have always been a major Fitzgerald fan. I knew most of these details from various general readings, but it is still thrilling to read how the stories developed in his mind and it is absolutely heartbreaking to read of his helpless descent into abject alcoholism and the desperate insanity of his wife Zelda. While I never really felt like I "knew" Fitzgerald with this book, as all truly great biographers accomplish, nonetheless, I knew all of the details and I could read the intimate struggles in his letters. This book is accompanied by a generous and healthy amount of graphics, many from the author's personal collection. If you want to read about FSF while having many of the myths peeled away, this is the book. Just as with Jay Gastby and Dick Diver, at the end of the book, I felt myself thinking "Poor guy."

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has a different feel than most biographies. Lots of chapters (I think more than 60), and long sections devoted to copying and pasting primary source material. I was surprised some consider this a top tier biography, because it didn’t really strike me that way. But I still learned a lot I didn’t know about Fitzgerald’s alcoholism, his tumultuous relationship with Zelda, and how close he had been with Hemingway. I enjoyed the story about him obsessively wanting to change sentences in Tender is the Night years after it had been published, thinking that would appease critics. And then the new version he released was more flawed and readers have ended up sticking to the first version. Also didn’t realize he wrote Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this was a biography. Cleverly written, though with a forgiving hand, it distills one of the most celebrated and sorrowful figures in american lit. I had read many of Fitzgerald's works, knew his troubles with Zelda, and that he died before his last book was complete, but to get it all, in one lovingly put together tome- the epitome of heartbreak. Most interesting fact- the author made a little over $13 dollars in royalties from his published books the year of his death- only 7 copies of Gatsby were sold that year, but now over 300,000 a year pass through the hands of a eager public.

[Brittany Batong · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent read for anyone curious about the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Brucolli conveys Fitzgerald's life using only information that can be solidly backed by either Fitzgerald's own accounts, reliable family/collegue accounts, or by existing data. It is especially interesting that he uses Fitzgerald's accounting ledgers to gain insight into the author's life. Bottom line: Fitzgerald was a great writer with often disappointing personal beliefs who made tragic life choices. Not a gossip book, but a compelling read.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruccoli is THE guy to read if you want to know about F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had no idea of that when I took a college class he taught in the 90s. Bruccoli was a Fitzgerald scholar, and my university (University of South Carolina, where he was a professor) houses his entire collection of Fitzgerald "stuff," second only to Princeton, where Fitzgerald actually went.

An annual re-read, this book is my go-to for Fitz information.