Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald: An American Woman's Life

by Linda Wagner-Martin

Linda Wagner-Martin's Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is a twenty-first century story. Using cultural and gender studies as contexts, Wagner-Martin brings new information to the story of the Alabama judge's daughter who, at seventeen, met her husband-to-be, Scott Fitzgerald. Swept away from her stable home life into Jazz Age New York and Paris, Zelda eventually learned to be a writer and a painter; and she came close to being a ballerina. An evocative portrayal of a talented woman's professional and emotional conflicts, this study contains extensive notes and new photographs.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir, Southern

266 pages, Hardcover

First published July 30, 2004

About the author

Linda Wagner-Martin is the Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature Emerita at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Over a teaching career spanning 53 years, she taught at Wayne State University, Michigan State University, and UNC, while authoring and editing more than 55 books. Her work includes biographies of major literary figures such as Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou, along with studies like A History of American Literature from 1950 to the Present and The Routledge Introduction to American Postmodernism. After retiring in 2011, she continued publishing extensively. Wagner-Martin’s contributions have earned her prestigious awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Service to American Literature, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Radcliffe Institute. She holds BA, BS, MA, and PhD degrees from Bowling Green State University, where she graduated magna cum laude with majors in English and minors in American History.

Reviews

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

According to the blurb: "Linda Wagner-Martin has created a new kind of biography of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald: Zelda's story from her perspective, instead of her famous husband's. This is the first biography to tell her entire life story, describing what it meant to be born in 1900, and then to be a "New Woman" in Montgomery, Alabama. Featuring for the first time information from the newly available archives at Princeton, Wagner-Martin vividly illustrates Zelda's psychiatric landscape. Detailed discussions of the roots of alcoholism and infidelity are juxtaposed with the first comprehensive critiques of Zelda's diverse artistic accomplishments as a dancer, short story writer, essayist and novelist. This is an evocative portrayal of a talented woman's professional and emotional conflicts, a story with as much relevance today as it had half a century ago."

Overall, I would say this is true...although I would add the caveat that this book does not produce quite the separation of Zelda's story from that of "F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife" as I was led to believe. A great amount of the material is told from the perspective of Zelda as wife to the "great writer." And how that affected her. Quite honestly, I don't see any other way for the story to be told. Once Zelda married him, there was not going back to "just Zelda." Every time she tried to assert herself--whether through her own writing or her dancing--Scott took control or forced himself to the forefront. Even to the point of claiming some of her short stories as his own.

In the end this is a very sad story. It would seem that Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was a very talented woman in her own right. She had a great gift as a ballet dance and with the written word. Without the influence of alcohol and Scott's need to control every aspect of her life, she might well have been as prominent a literary figure as her husband. It is a very compelling story of the struggle of women during the early part of the 20th century to assert themselves as more than just appendages to their husbands--to be able to develop their own talents and to feel worthwhile as something more than just wives, mothers, and housekeepers. Three and a half stars.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a welcome reissue of Wagner Martin's book originally published in 2004. As a scholar she has returned to the archives and gives us a different Zelda rather than simply 're-hashing the 'flapper 'n' madness' cliches.

In particular, this replaces Zelda against the wider cultural pressures of twentieth century American women, and also takes account of her upbringing as an Alabama belle, and the values she absorbed as a child.

In summary, this looks at Zelda as a woman who happens to be married to Scott Fitzgerald rather than as an appendage to her famous husband.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful biography of poor Zelda - I had no idea how manipulative and controlling Scott Fitzgerald was and what a toxic mess their marriage turned out to be. Zelda was such a talented woman in her own right but was never able to fulfil her potential. In this well-written and thorough biography, the author explores Zelda's character in some depth, (although she somehow still remains elusive) although I could have done without the frequent extracts from professional psychologists which she quotes to back up her case. I didn't think these were necessary or helpful. That apart I very much enjoyed learning more about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and her sad life.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading!!!

[Showme · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vanity Fair a l'academe.

The book cover is pretty. The author has written a lot of books. Both superficial signs of good content. At first, when I found the book to be so ploddingly bad, I thought it must be me. I mean, how could the author of so many published works be this bad?

Alas, all I can think is, "thank God I'm done with the thing."

It's like a never-ending Vanity Fair article that is short on substance, long on psychobabble assumptions, wrapped in the presumption of societal importance. The author compounds the reader's misery with the added tedium of a dull book report on Zelda's novel.

Toward the blessed end, the author notes that perhaps the worst tragedy of Zelda's life is ..... dying in the hospital fire. Seriously?

[Katie Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zelda

Linda Wagner-Martin's telling story of Zelda Fitzgerald is so wonderfully done. Her research is brilliant, showing Zelda in a much different light than any other biography of her I have ever read. Whole heartedly recommend!

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really well written and informative

[F. Schuermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

claustrophobically tragic.

[Lisbeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, the couple, is a phenomena, belonging to the roaring twenties and the jazz age. For most people, I think, they symbolise the young, beautiful, successful couple, moving in the jet-set world of the time, from one party to the next, with a glass of champagne in the hand… or, something stronger. The couple has always fascinated me, so when I was offered a review copy from Endeavour Press, I accepted. Especially, since I did not know very much about Zelda. Scott was the successful writer and she the beautiful wife supporting him. As well all know; all is not well in the fairy tale world.

Linda Wagner-Martin is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and among her fifty edited and written books are also biographies of Sylvia Plath, Gertrude Stein, and Barbara Kingsolver. The biography of Zelda is very well written, well researched and with a lot of references to letters and other personal papers. The Fitzgerald papers, are held at Princeton University Library (Scott Fitzgerald studied there), and contains "original manuscripts, working drafts, corrected galleys, personal and professions correspondence, autobiographical scrapbooks, photographs, and other original material of F. Scott Fitzgerald." Linda Wagner-Martin has obviously gone through this treasure, and the material is well integrated in the story or in the foot notes through out the book. Writing a book about one partner of a 'non separate' couple or entity as they were, and has become, can easily make the author sympathise with this partner, in this case Zelda. However, Wagner-Martin manages to keep the neutral line all through the book. In tight, complicated and very sensitive situations she manages perfectly to follow Zelda, and still include a perspective from Scott's point of view. She lets the reader vouch for him/herself and to form a personal opinion on what their lives were like.

It s a very engaging book. Maybe not surprising with such engaging people. It might therefore come as a surprise that Zelda and Scott were not very happy. But let's start from the beginning. Zelda grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, as the youngest of five siblings. As she was entering the family at a time when they thought there would not be more children, she was somewhat spoilt. Her mother doted on her and she had a very traditional childhood. She was born in 1900, so there was still a touch of the old south where she grew up, and a traditional, old fashioned view on girls and their behaviour. Girls grew up to be wives and mothers. Zelda was very beautiful and considered a 'Southern belle’, and very popular with the young men. She enjoyed partying and dancing. In 1917 soldiers came to stay close to Montgomery. It was all very exciting for the young women in the area, and Zelda became particularly interested in one of them, F. Scott Fitzgerald. She had other admirers and even received an offer of marriage, but in the end, Scott was the one that captured her heart. Scott was for yours older than Zelda, but much more experienced. Already at this time he was a heavy drinker and smoker, which did not go down very well with Zelda’s family, who were quite restricted and old fashioned. But, Zelda had made her choice and they married an moved north to New York.

Zelda wanted something more with her life, and a glorious one. A friend of hers became a movie star and she also had ambitions to do something creative. She was good at dancing, had taken ballet lessons for many years, and was thinking of an acting career. However, as Zelda soon discovered; to be married to Scott meant to give up your own life and act as his beautiful, adoring partner. She was quickly introduced to Scott’s life of parties and drinking. At first she was fascinated with a world so different from her own one, but very soon she discovered that there was not that much in it for her.

Scott started his writing career at this time, and made a hit with his first book This Side of Paradis. He was the young up-coming writer, with a beautiful wife. Moving around in artistic circles, visible around town and enjoying life. No wonder they became the glamorous, iconic couple representing the jazz age. Behind the scenes it was not that glamorous. Zelda had discovered that Scott was very jealous, he totally dictated both their lives and Zelda had no freedom to pursue her own interests. Scott was the star in the family and everything should evolve around him. In 1921 their lives changed slightly when daughter Frances Scott (Scottie) was born.

The Fitzgeralds moved all their lives from one place to the other. During the 1920s they spent several years in Europe and became part of the 'Lost Generation' crowd that stayed in Paris at the time. The Fitzgeralds kept a summer house at the French Riviera, ‘Villa Paquita’ in Juan-les-Pins, invited their friends, and made this part of France a posh place to be.

Yet in 1925, none of their friends made any effort to find help. If Scott were already offensive because of his constant drinking, then Zelda might well have become an object of sympathy. Why she did not was probably because she appeared to go along with Scott‟s unseemly manners: she was considered a co-conspirator. As John Peale Bishop wrote several years later to Allen Tate: 'One must always remember that the life of the Fitzgeralds was a common creation. They collaborated, even on Scott‟s drunkenness. And either, I think, might have emerged from their difficulties alone, but never together.'

Zelda was all her life struggling for an identity of her own. She did not want to be only a ‘femme inspiratrice’. In Paris she continued her ballet lessons for a famous Russian teacher. Obviously she was very good, worked very hard and was offered to dance in Milan. This offer was never taken up, and there are no written evidence on why not. She wrote herself through the years, but everything she wrote was published under both their names, although most of the stories were written by Zelda. Later on she also wrote a book about her life Save Me the Waltz, which was considerably edited by Scott, who did not like it. Probably, too close to their own life, but from a different angle that he wrote himself. She took up painting and was good at that as well, even had an exhibition a couple of times. She was trying to make something of her life, but was restricted by the influence of Scott. Here we come to the crux of their marriage.

The therapeutic role of words was to come later for Zelda. Once she had written her own story, in the novel Save Me the Waltz and probably in the seven or eight short stories she wrote at about the same time (stories now lost, except for their summaries in her agent‟s file), she might have had some chance at reclaiming her story. The irony of the Scott-Zelda relationship from the start, however, was that Scott regularly usurped Zelda‟s story.
Footnote Clearer in hindsight, this process has been labeled injurious by all of Zelda‟s biographers, and others. As Elizabeth Hardwick wrote, “Zelda‟s greatest gift to Fitzgerald as a writer was her own startling and reckless personality and his almost paralyzing love of it” (Elizabeth Hardwick, Seduction and Betrayal (1974), p. 96). More explicitly, Carolyn Heilbrun refers to what she calls Fitzgerald‟s “assumption that he had a right to the life of his wife, Zelda, as an artistic property. She went mad, confined to what Mark Schorer has called her ultimate anonymity - to be storyless ... [Fitzgerald] had usurped her narrative” (Carolyn Heilbrun, Writing a Woman‟s Life (1988), p. 12).

At about this time Zelda had various break downs and from here on she stayed frequently in different clinics. It was not that she was forced to hospitalisation, but she choose herself to go into a clinic to get help. Scott was a very jealous, demanding man. Zelda was his wife and she should abide to him. She was never allowed to shine above him, although talented herself. One theory of the author is that she was so persistent with her ballet lessons, since this was a field where Scott could not compete. The rest was a competition and since Scott always had to come out on the top, Zelda had no chance. She was pushed back and down, and her only relief it seems, was to enter the psychological clinics, where she spent most of the rest of her life. There she could pursue her writing and painting without the interference of Scott. However, it is not entirely true, because it seems that during many of the years she was hospitalised, he directed the doctors about her treatment.

The first years in Switzerland and in an expensive clinic in the US, it was almost like a 'holiday' home. There were treatments intertwined with free private time where the patients could pursue their interests. However, later on when money got scarce, the institutions were less free and she was put through some serious drugs and electric shocks that forever changed her. In the 1930s there was a lot of testing of new drugs, which later was discovered to make more harm than good. Unfortunately, this is the time when Zelda stayed in the institutions.

Collected throughout his notebooks, too, were the kind of often anguished statements that readers claimed not to recognize when they read the essays. For instance, Fitzgerald on gender: When I like men I want to be like them — I want to lose the outer qualities that give me my individuality and he like them. I don't want the man [sic] I want to absorb into myself all the qualities that make him attractive and leave him out ... When I like women I want to own them, to dominate them, to have them admire me.
For the Fitzgerald in the notebooks, ownership was visceral: “The feeling that she was (his) began between his shoulders and spread over him like a coat going on.”Once man and woman comprise a family, however, Fitzgerald assesses: Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds; they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material.

In later years they mostly stayed in different places. Scott continued his life with his various mistresses. Already from the beginning of their marriage it seems that he was unfaithful. He died in 1940 from his drinking. Zelda went to live with her mother and her life was very quiet. She continued to go back and forth to various clinics and died in 1948 when the house where she was hosted in a clinic caught fire. She is buried with Scott in Rockville Maryland. On the grave stone is engraved the last line from The Great Gatsby:

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

All in all it is a sad story of talented people who were lost both with and without each other. You wonder how it was for their daughter to grow up in this powerful family. Zelda loved her daughter very much, and through the book there are quotes from letters she wrote. Beautiful letters which show the love she felt for her daughter. Scottie became a journalist and writer herself, was married twice and had four children.

Dolan's comment about “The Crack-Up” essays is that they are strangely unpopulated. Neither the author's wife nor his child is mentioned: instead he clearly situates himself alone in the small Southern town. Yet it is at this period in Fitzgerald's history that he is realizing the great, and permanent, loss of Zelda. (As George Jean Nathan was later to write, “Zelda's illness left Scott in a state from which he never fully recovered.”)

The above quote from the book is from the later writings of Scott. The quote by George Jean Nathan above and the extract from Scott’s diary above, give us a clue to Scott’s behaviour, as well as the question why Zelda did not leave him. They were, in spite of everything, not capable or did not want to cut the bonds with each other. Even in later years when they most of the time lived in separate places, the bond, the love was there. They could not live with each other, but neither without each other.

A fascinating story, and I highly recommend Linda Wagner-Martin's biography. There are more biographies to look forward too as well. And a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I happen to have on my shelves. It is by Andrew Turnbull, from 1962.
Review from my book blog thecontentreader.blogspot.com

[Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read Nancy Milford's book many years ago, I was still interested in learning more about this tragic woman who in so many ways defined an age. I found the story engaging, as always. Zelda (and Scott) Fitzgerald's life is like a bad accident happening in slow motion that one can't turn away from. Plus it is glamorous, on the surface at least.

This book captures aspects of Zelda that I don't remember reading about before ... her obsession with dance and the way she drove herself to become good at it, driving Scott to distraction in the process ... her wonderful, if sometimes purplish, prose, ample examples of which are included ... and the state of psychiatric medicine at the time which contributed to her problems more than it helped solve them. Zelda comes off well in this narrative; Scott, not so much. In fact, I've grown to dislike him simply based on Wagner-Martin's accounting of his treatment of Zelda and life ending alcoholism. I'll always love The Great Gatsby, but I'll see it in a different light having read this book.

So why am I torn between three and four stars? While I enjoyed reading the book, I was distracted by the number of proofreading errors ... several times "he" should have been "be" or a period was left out. And there were other errors of the sort. But, easily sorted in the reading, after all. So I went with four stars.

[Elena Sotelo-McCrary · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you believe that your life in some way is miserable I implore you to read this book. Too many women who burned as brightly as those they loved have been hidden in the shadows. Finally, Zelda emerges like the beautiful butterfly. In a time when women's ailments meant confinement we learn that tragedy is not just being shut away, it is by those who supposedly love you. Was F. Scott as brilliant because of her? His books surely pave the way. But, was Zelda not the major muse who brought our his brilliance. I believe tragically so. Even if she never received the credit. It was lovely to read of her soul.

[Connie Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the psychological accounting that takes place in this biography. I come away with appreciating what an amazingly talented and intelligent woman Z was, who imitated and manifested the world around her through highly creative literary writing, painting, design, and ballet. The gender identity problem of her lifetime is definitional to her life. While I feel gender barriers are less overt when I read her story 120 years later, they still present. Exceptional handling and identification of biography between what was Zelda's life within the her husband's famous life.

[Tamara Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating woman, for sure....and paints Scott as an alcoholic jerk. This is a narrative about an amazing, talented woman who never really got to shine in her husband's shadow. He wouldn't allow it and he stole her work. Her only novel is virtually unavailable. I'm more a fan of historical novels where there are scenes painted and dialogue rather than dry narrative, and there are typos and grammatical errors that should have been edited. The research involved to document this book, however was massive and I respect that. It is a very good read, but a bit dry.

[Maranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short briskly paced biography gives the reader a good overview of the life of the Jazz Age icon Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was sad, frustrating and fascinating to read. I know more of the real story now and want to see her art and writing

[Lavender · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some years ago I read a biography about both of the Fitzgeralds. So I knew quite a lot about them. While the other book handles both characters equally you can easily see that Linda Wagner-Martin dislikes Scott. Not without reason but she holds his flaws more against him than she does it with Zelda.

Zelda grows up to be the beloved and youngest child of the Sayre Family. Her family is not wealthy but well known. Her father is Judge Sayre. She is pretty and becomes a real Southern Belle.
Scott as a boy is arrogant and confident. He knows he wants to become a famous writer. He meets Zelda when he volunteered to serve in WW1. He comes to Zelda’s hometown to wait for his transfer to Europe. They both complement each other, in good things as in bad. After a few struggles they become a couple and got married. Scott archives his first success as a writer and they become the glamorous couple we all know about. But Scott is an alcoholic. That makes it difficult to work and write. He begins to write short stories and essays to earn money. Zelda sees herself as a writer, too. She also writes short stories and they get published, but most of the time labeled as Scott’s. Scott is very competitive. He complaints about Zelda spending money but does nothing to earn it herself. But he does not want her to write. He wants to be the writer in the family.

Zelda was trained as a ballet dancer while she was young and the teacher told her that she got real talent. When she starts taking dance lessons again in her mid-twenties Scott only laughs about it and calls her a third-class dancer. He admires other women for earning money but he wants to keep Zelda small.

Scott began quite early in their relationship to use material from Zelda’s diaries in his own stories. What I found quite astonishing was the fact that both were very good with words. They could write. But they both had a lack of imagination. Both only used their own life, their relationship for their stories. Both never really wrote a fiction-only story. And that was the problem because Scott claimed their life only as his material. Zelda should not write about them. She should not write at all only when it helped him.

Zelda herself felt inferior to him. She was incredibly depended on Scott. She moved from her parents care to Scott. She had a lot of ideas, wanted to dance or to be a movie star. But she did nothing. She became a mother, a housewife and a party girl. She was part of the glamorous scene only because of Scott. When she took her ballet lessons her teacher offered her a role in a ballet. But she did not take the chance. There is no record that she did ever answer to that offer. She just stood with Scott and carried on taking lessons. She somehow never grew up. Taking lessons meant to her that she was still young, not an adult, that she was still not ready and on her way.

I had problems with understanding Zelda’s character when I read that biography I mentioned above. Same is here. I don’t get her. It is quite hard to understand why such an intelligent and gifted woman really did nothing with her life. She devoted it to Scott. She traveled the world, she met a bunch of interesting people (Hemingway, Gertrude Stein) but she was somehow not able to be more than the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was part of his work, she inspired him and she wrote many of his stuff or he copied it from her. They were both somehow so similar, only he was the dominant one and she the devoted one. It’s hard to say today which kind of mental problems she suffered and what made her stay in institutions for so many years. Her lack of discipline and nursing the idea of chances and things to happen made her still do nothing really fulfilling with her many talents.

The writing is informative but a little dull. The author did a good job and writes very detailed. But it is also just “than-happened-that-and-than-happened-that”. It was a bit dry. I enjoyed the other biography more, it was more like a novel and captured more of the roaring-twenties-feeling. But this is all right and very informative when you are interested in the Fitzgeralds.


I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was not perfect, but it has merit. First, typos, too many typos. Second, too much trolling psychobabble to fit to Zelda and/or Scott. It was annoying to read psych excerpts from that were cherry-picked to fit.

However, this was the first biography I have read that made it clear that Zelda, although not mentally well, was so railroaded and manipulated by her spouse that she could never have recovered, what with him directing her care. Zelda did not know what she was marrying into before their wedding, and when you add that to the crazy life they lead, she had little room to mature. Maturing did not fit into her plans, which seemed to revolve around being indulged. His plan was to use her, and use her he did, even if it meant messing with her mental health in extremely unethical ways.

Scott was manipulative from the beginning and likely egged her on or set her up to many of her outrageous behaviors. However, when you read how much he manipulated her diagnoses and treatments so as to benefit himself, it is just breathtaking. It would have been better for Zelda if he had divorced her, but that would have, in Scott's eyes, cut off his material. She served as his muse, his story and sometimes, his ghost-writer. Zelda so clearly married the wrong person in personality and in sobriety, maturity and sanity. I doubt that maturity was ever possible in these two destructive people. Very tragic.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zelda: “That is what you want me to be.”
Scott: “No, I don’t.”
Zelda: “Well, what do you want me to be?”
Scott: “I want you to do what I say.” (p. 171 – Dr. Rennie’s consultation)

Excellent biography, thorough but reads easily. Was confused by the use of the name ‘Patricia’ to refer to their daughter, Scottie, in the chapters mentioning her birth and early years.

The evidence of psychological and physical abuse and the recurring displays of absolute submissiveness are heart-breaking.
Interesting to read this after L. Wagner-Martin’s biography of Sylvia Plath.

“To be considered as an object can lead to a deep inner sense that there must be something wrong and bad about oneself… To be treated like an object is to be threatened with psychic annihilation… when one is an object, not a subject, all of one’s own physical and sexual impulses and interests are presumed not to exist independently. They are to be brought into existence only by and for others – controlled, defined, and used. Any stirrings of physicality and sexuality in herself would only confirm for a girl or a woman her evil state.” (Jean Baker Miller, Toward a New Psychology of Women, 1976)

[Jena · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Lee Smith's novel Guests on Earth, I became intrigued by the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and wanted to distinguish fact from fiction. In this biography by Linda Wagner-Martin, the portrait of Zelda's life is haunting, and I will never think of F. Scott Fitzgerald--or his work--in the same way. While I was aware of the dysfunctional relationship between Zelda and Scott, I'd never known just how emotionally (and sometimes physically) abusive he was. He was deeply insecure, and as a result, wanted Zelda as a possession. He could not reconcile himself to celebrate her desire to be an artist in her own right. I was shocked to learn of his well documented plagiarism of some of her works and his attempts to prevent her from writing-- even while she was in mental hospitals. Wagner-Martin's biography is extraordinarily well-reserached and raises fascinating questions about love, relationships, art, alcoholism, and mental health. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the lives of the "Lost Generation."

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where most biographies of the Fitzgeralds take F. Scott Fitzgerald's viewpoint, this book attempts to see the relationship and their experiences together through Zelda's. I think it is very successful. It touches on issues of mental illness labels and the kind of male dominance that led to those labels in the early part of the 20th Century as well as offering a cautionary tale of what is possible still without a more full picture of one's life history. Wagner-Martin is very good at weaving biography and theory to show how things may have been overlooked in Zelda's mental health assessments and how ideologies often destroy individuals in their path. Despite a reliance on theoretical analysis, this book did not enter into an overly esoteric place and remained readable and interesting throughout. I really enjoyed it.

[Holly Ites · Rating 2 out of 5]

So often, it seems, especially in the realm of gifted artists, self-destructive people seem drawn to each other. It is slightly sobering to learn that F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, were not the golden couple so many people want to remember. Neither was able to live up to their potential, which makes the reader wonder who they could have become if they had lived in a different time. So many factors, other than ego, contributed to their demise... world wars, Prohibition, the Great Depression.

Linda Wagner-Martin provides a fairly concise blow-by-blow of the marriage, drawing from letters, journals and interviews, but doesn't factor in the era and the bombardment of changes that must have played a huge part in shaping attitudes and expectations. Still, her writing is excellent and without bias, giving credence to the truth that there are two sides to every story.

[Laura Hallman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would not call this book "well written" by any means. There are strange practices in syntax and organization. It's almost a reoccurant "Oh and I forgot to tell you THIS happened first" throughout the book. It's as though written by someone with a strong interest and lackadaiscial editor.

That being said, it was fascinating. While I was interested by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald's story before, I didn't have too much background. I would certainly suggest reading this if you like biographies, artists, or the time period in general. If you are hoping to maintain a high regard of the character of F. Scott Fitzgerald (who has his own interesting family history represented in other works), however, I would not read this. He doesn't come off so well.

[Carolyn Di Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter read Great Gatsby in high school this year and kept raving about wonderful Fitzgerald. I thought I'd remembered that he hadn't treated his wife so well, so I went in search of a biography of Zelda. I heard correctly. What a hot mess these two were! If two people were more toxic to each other I can't think of who, outside of maybe Sid and Nancy!
The only complaint I had with this book, is that is jumps around a bit. You have to keep checking what year the author is referring to. Other than that, it was fascinating and I did recommend it to my daughter, in order to get a fairer picture of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[Myra Gormley]

The Jazz Age has been a neglected time in my reading of American history. This story of Zelda Sayre who married F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals much more about her and her literary talents than I was aware. Now I wonder how much of her work did Fitzgerald take credit for or use? The biographer provides great insight into the era and the disfunctional, but talented couple.

The biography would be even better if the problems of Zelda's mental health had been explored more in depth along with the care of mental illness in the 1920s.

[Eileen Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew nothing of the lady prior to reading this book. It is very comprehensive, beginning with her almost carefree early life in Alabama with family and friends to her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald.
She was caught up in the frenetic goings on in New York and Paris during the era of the so called Jazz Age.
This story is told using letters and quotes from friends and acquaintances, chronicling her family life and her hospitalisation due to depression.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Endeavour via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book I’ve read by Linda Wagner-Martin and it definitely solidified my low opinion of her writing style. So many clunky sentences. But it’s a fascinating story. I knew their relationship was troubled, but I had no idea it was such a complete train wreck from start to finish. I felt so bad for her.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh! I wrote a review of both these books and it has disappeared into cyberspace! One thing leads to another, and I will be doing some rereading of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels and short stories in light of what I have learned from these two biographies. Poor Zelda!

[Staci · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald.

[Beth Wheeler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading Zelda's fictionalized point of view.

[Krista · Rating 5 out of 5]

would.read.again. awesome read.