Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

I looked forward to reading this book after beginning the the store series and perhaps that's why I was left disappointed. I credit the author with what surely was a tremendous amount of effort. However, in giving Zelda a voice the author has managed to drain her of all personality. Characters felt superficial and worst of all boring. It is difficult to fathom this Zelda inspiring great American literature. Will we ever really know the real Zelda?

I absolutely loved this book, was sad when I finished it, and couldn't wait to write about it. Don't let the somewhat slow start deter you because the story picks up steam quickly.

Z is similar to The Paris Wife by Paula McLain in that it's a fictional take from a famous author's wife's perspective about a real period of time in their lives. And, Z even covers the same time period as The Paris Wife, but from a different perspective (Zelda's vs. Hadley Hemingway's), so it's especially interesting if you've already read The Paris Wife.

The story of Zelda and Scott is a tragic love story carried out amid fame (if not fortune), glitter, clinking champagne glasses, and the literary intelligentsia of the time (Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, etc). And, you truly would never guess this novel takes place during Prohibition based on the amount of alcohol flowing through it...which made for an exciting, but heartbreaking story.

Zelda's voice is distinctive through Fowler's writing and I just loved the way she phrases things - the language feels similar to The Great Gatsby's.

This book is understandably pro-Zelda. She is portrayed as exciting, modern, misunderstood, and somewhat victimized while Scott comes across as slimy, pretentious, arrogant, petty, jealous, immature, and obsessed with rich people (despite never becoming one himself due to his profligate spending). But, they seem to love each other as much as possible through all that.

It was interesting how Scott was portrayed as the first author to truly embrace the modern concept of marketing and P.R. for his writing - he seemed to view his marriage to Zelda as a tool to add mystique to his writing and encouraged her to act like certain characters in his books and stories.

Z also provides great fodder for discussion about women retaining their own identities in marriage and motherhood...whether through a career or something else. This strikes me as a very modern topic for the 1920's and is obviously still relevant today. Scott wants Zelda, increasingly against her will, to live a life of hair appointments, parties, and painting lessons that enhances his own image and then puts her down for it later when comparing her "series of low-key amusements" to the importance of his "risky existence" of baring his soul through his writing.

Reading Z made me want to re-read The Great Gatsby, as well as Scott's first two novels (This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and the Damned), both of which were initially more successful than Gatsby.

Z is a fun, light read for summer, but is also chock full of history and substance.

For more reviews, check out my blog, Sarah's Book Shelves.

Not as compelling to read as I had anticipated. I was familiar with much of the factual information...but felt that some of the 'insights' the author imagined might have been more than I wanted to know.

This book did not grab me within the first few chapters. The most interesting thing to me was the tie to Montgomery, AL. Normally I would push myself through to see if it would get better, but in this case I didn't see enough merit to do so. Life is too short to read boring books.

This is not a feel good book. It is fun to take the journeys with Zelda she traveled so much and met interesting, quirky people. I thought I would like her I and I really did at first but as the story went on she was not fun to follow anymore. I kept reading out of book club obligation. I did enjoy the visions brought clearly through great writing of her clothes and homes and places she went though.

Z is one of my favorite novels this year. It not only showcases the glamorous parts of an artist's life but it is also recounts the not-so-good parts that all humans, regardless of talent, may live through.

I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this book as I had read several biographies/accounts about Zelda's life. I love learning about history and circumstances in regards to the women in it, particularly when I hardly realize I am learning and the further opening of my mind stays with me.

I enjoyed this book not knowing a lot about the Fitzgeralds so found they story interesting. As with stories told in this manor you are never sure how much is fact or the authors take on the people she is writting about. It was diffinately writting from Zelda's side but as we know there is aways two side to every story. I came away thinking that these two people did not bring out the best in each other.

I studied Scott Fitzgerald in graduate school and have read the many books written about Zelda. This interpretation presents her as a human being instead of a silly flapper. The reader is able to understand her thoughts and passions. I felt the same way about Stewart O'Nan's WEST OF SUNSET, a novel about FSF. (I've seen two episodes of the store's movie that is based on Z, and my famous last words: "The book is always better."

I enjoyed this book not knowing a lot about the Fitzgeralds so found they story interesting. As with stories told in this manor you are never sure how much is fact or the authors take on the people she is writting about. It was diffinately writting from Zelda's side but as we know there is aways two side to every story. I came away thinking that these two people did not bring out the best in each other.

I studied Scott Fitzgerald in graduate school and have read the many books written about Zelda. This interpretation presents her as a human being instead of a silly flapper. The reader is able to understand her thoughts and passions. I felt the same way about Stewart O'Nan's WEST OF SUNSET, a novel about FSF. (I've seen two episodes of the store's movie that is based on Z, and my famous last words: "The book is always better."

While we may never fully get into Zelda's mind ,Z gives a really realistic portrait of her extraordinary life. A tale of two brilliant fragile individuals whose self destructive nature would overcome their considerable accomplishments. Enjoyable start to finish.

This book is great for anyone who has read The Great Gatsby or anyone interested in the jazz age/culture and the life of historical figures. This is a great novel that creates sympathetic and relatable characters. You also learn so much history but all because it's wrapped within an interesting story. I felt I was living the life of the main character. Definitely recommend!

Well written i thought and it seems she did her research. However the content didnt work for me. They just seemed like a dysfunctional couple and F. Scott Fitzgerald seemed like an insecure narcissistic child and Zelda seemed lost.

This fictional account of F.Scott Fitzerald and his wife Zelda showed a sad marriage of two talented human beings. I would like to read more biographies to ascertain the true picture of this husband and wife. Neither one took care of their daughter very well because they were portrayed as always going out drinking and Zelda was in an institution.

I love historical fictions and this one surely did not disappoint. Anne Fowler descriptively depicts the lives of Zelda and F. Scott in a very raw and real way. There is no fairy tale gloss. The glitz, the glammer, the rise, the fall, the love, the depression, the alcohol and drug abuse...its all laid out before you in a compelling story about the literary elite of this time period. It's especially interesting to read the story from Zelda's point of view since women had not yet been given a voice in her era.

I think Zelda deserves a medal putting up with an alcoholic husband. I think both Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway were great in their own minds and I think alcohol ruined them. Zelda was very much in love with her husband,she probably thought that things would change. It was sad watching these people self destroy. Zelda marrying against her fathers wishes may have been a factor to tough it out .
I really liked Zelda, she had spirit and lived the best she could, putting up with her controlling husband

This novel portrayed a seriously flawed, but immensely talented couple. Each struggled with their own demons. Fear of failure, the desire to do and be more. All of it lived amidst the rich, influential, and artists of their time. Told from Zelda's perspective, the style is conversational and lacks passion and these were passionate people.i would recommend this book because of the insight into that era.

Poorly written as historical fiction. The author portrays Zelda as the ultimate moral feminist. This account is way beyond fiction when it comes to Zelda. By all accounts biographical works have portrayed her as enjoying the party as much as, if not more than, Scott.
Perhaps projection on the part of the author??

Read this with real interest. I was unfamiliar with much about her life. It is a wonder she survived Scott Fitzgerald. Great insight to the wild life in Paris etc. "Midnight in Paris" the movie makes a good pairing. My book club will be discussing the book this Thursday.

I'm so sad to not have loved this book. I went into it really wanting to find it perfect and endearing, but it came up short. First, this book is supposed to be a book about Zelda, to speak her unheard voice. However, it starts with Zelda meeting Scott, and ends when Scott dies. It defines Zelda solely in terms of her life during the Scott era. Second, Zelda has no character at all. You have no idea at any point what she is thinking, what motivates her. It is basically just a narrative of Scott, with Zelda being the narrator. She reflects upon him an awful lot, but never upon herself. You never understand why she stays with him, why she acts how she acts. Building off of this is reason three -- that Zelda was a mentally ill woman, but we don't see anything of her breakdown in this book. Yes, she is hospitalized, but I can't see ANYWHERE in the book that gives evidence of her being mentally ill. Additionally, Fowler glosses over Zelda's stays in the hospital, and her treatments. Is this because Scott wasn't there, or because it was too difficult a topic and Fowler has no understanding of her character? Doesn't matter, really, because it has the same end result - poor writing, poor story telling, disappointing book. Will return. Don't even want this taking up space on my shelf.

My frustration has little to do with the style of the writing, and more to do with the personalities involved. They seem aimless, no purpose to their lives. "They don't DO anything !" I knew very little about Zelda previously, and not much more at this point. Although I have not quite finished the book, I will do so, mostly for my daughter's sake. Scott and Zelda seem to be perpetual children, never growing up, and accepting roles in the world. "Society, not reality !"

Not a bad read, but mostly a waste of two lives.

I don't know whether someone who
isn't particularly interested in the
relationship between Scott and
Zelda would have enjoyed this
as much as I did. It was well
written and made a good story,
and it did fill in a few blanks about
what led to her difficulties.

Zelda was so-so. It didn't keep my attention, and because it is a work of fiction, I struggled with believing it most of the time. I usually love historical fiction, but not this one. There was no suspense-

I had high expectations for this novel--perhaps higher than I should of given it's initial hype--but truthfully, this novel and it's style of first person narrative, just didn't do it for me. I guess the word is "underwhelming". Sorry, but get this book at the library when it comes out, and walk don't run...my guess is it will be dusty on the shelf, even there.

I found the book very enjoyable. It was fitting that the story of this famous couple was written from Zelda's point of view. She was of high spirit, energetic, and talented. Given the role of women at the time and living largely in the shadow of her charismatic husband, she was often frustrated and disappointed. The author did a wonderful job of putting together as close an accurate story as one can glean from the information that exists. It was a beautiful depiction of the glamorous flapper period and the sadness that comes from burning a candle at both ends. Definitely worth reading

Interesting read about the colorful lives of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Read The Paris Wife about Hemingway's time in Paris so there was some correlation. The most interesting part was the relationship between Hemingway and Fitzgerald and this novel seemed to imply that it was more one sided. It seems the Fitzgeralds could have been the main characters in one of F. Scott's novels.

I have been an ardent fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald since I first read "The Great Gatsby" in the tenth grade. I own his complete works, along with an entire shelf of biographies and critical analyses of his work. As author Therese Anne Fowler notes in the Epilogue of this interesting, poignant novel, there really are Team Scott camps and Team Zelda camps. Few literary figures can boast such intense one-sided supporters. I've always found myself firmly planted on Team Scott, and I admit that I've given little regard to wife Zelda over the years other than knowing her as "the crazy woman" that ultimately destroyed Scott and his fragile talent.

That said, "Z" is an extraordinary, excellent fictional autobiography that - perhaps for the very first time - opened my eyes to the complicated nuances of the Fitzgeralds' life and marriage. Fowler's Zelda emerges as a complete, likeable flawed heroine - full of energy, love, and independence in an era when women were extremely limited and scandalized for thinking outside the confines of domesticity. At the outset I braced myself for a very critical portrayal of F. Scott Fitzgerald, since it was clear from the outset that Fowler was on Team Zelda. I was pleasantly surprised that Scott is treated quite fairly, characterized as the selfish, drunken genius that he was, firmly entrenched in the period's belief in male superiority. If anyone emerges as the villain here, it is Fitzgerald's friend and rival Ernest Hemingway, who treated quite critically (again, all from Zelda's perspective).

This is the touching, engaging story of a time and the two individuals who defined it. Zelda Fitzgerald is, at long last, a real person with a heart and soul and mind of her own, detached from her more famous husband. This book has inspired me to learn more about this unique woman, in the hopes that it will, in turn, help me better understand the beauty of Fitzgerald's work and why I fell in love with "Gatsby" in the first place, all those years ago. Easily recommended.

If you've seen Woody Allen's 2011 film "Midnight in Paris," you'll have a feel for what Therese Anne Fowler's novel Z is all about. In the film, a hapless modern-day screenwriter is inexplicably transported to the Paris of the 1920's, where he finds himself in the company of such mythical greats as Ernest Hemmingway, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, and yes, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Fowler's novel is written as a first-person account of Zelda Sayre's romance with and marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald. What works best about the novel is the same thing that works best about Allen's film - the reader is transported into a wondrous and exotic world of great writers, artists, and musicians against a backdrop of glamorous parties, excessive wealth, and the promise of dreams-come-true. This isn't so much a novel about Scott and Zelda, the "Golden Couple" who enchanted the public in the `20's, as it is about the time itself, about New York during Prohibition, about Paris and Rome, and about what it was like to be a woman with dreams of her own married to a man whose own dreams and expectations consumed her.

Fowler's Zelda is a remarkable character, full of charm and wit and promise. She meets Scott before the publication of his first novel, when he was so young and full of the spirit of adventure that she is captivated in spite of her father's admonition that he will never be able to support her. Their first few years in New York are a whirlwind of social engagements, all-night clubbing, and the undying attention of the media and the public. They seem charmed during those days. But if you know their story, you'll be anticipating what happens next. Zelda's own creative ambitions (she writes, paints, and dances) ultimately threaten her husband's, and there seems no hope of a peaceful resolution for the two of them.

In the afterward to Z, Fowler explains that this is a work of fiction, and while she did extensive research into the lives of both Scott and Zelda (including reading scores of letters they wrote to each other, and about each other, over the years), she has had to come up with her own explanations and interpretations of events that happened in their lives. For example, the acknowledged animosity between Zelda and Hemmingway has never been explained (they seemed friendly early in their relationship, but later Hemmingway was brutally critical of her). Here, Fowler creates an incident between them that is purely fiction, however cleverly it works to explain the rift. Is this fair? For a biography, definitely not. For fiction, I think it is.

Fowler admits that there are two distinct camps of opinion on the Fitzgeralds, one holding that Zelda ruined Scott's life, and the other holding that he ruined hers. In Z, Fowler tries to take a middle ground, one that clearly demonstrates the destructive nature of a man obsessed with his own fame and financial success, while at the same time pulling no punches in portraying Zelda as a woman suffering from a series of debilitating illnesses. But was Zelda's mental collapse really the result of an actual mental disorder, or was she the victim of a society (and a husband) that couldn't accept a woman with ambitions of her own? There is some suggestion of that in Z, and I must admit my opinion of Scott changed dramatically by the conclusion of Fowler's novel.
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I have long been an admirer of Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY, and I always saw him as Nick Carraway, young and overwhelmed amid the excesses of life in New York and Long Island. After reading Z, I wonder if Fitzgerald wasn't more Gatsby than Carraway, more obsessed than overwhelmed with a world that celebrated fame, money, and ostentatious pretention. Gatsby was motivated by the dream of a past he felt had eluded him; so was Fitzgerald. He wanted the fame, the money, the success, the envy of his peers. And he wanted a wife that would be as much a part of that - the flapper girl, the "beautiful fool," as Daisy once said - as his novels and his stories. When Zelda began to look for a life and identity of her own, Scott couldn't handle it. As Fowler writes (in Zelda's voice), "I was fighting for my right to exist independently in the world, to realize myself, to steer my own boat if I felt like it. [Scott] wanted to control everything, to have it all turn out the way he'd once envisioned it would . . . He wanted his adoring flapper, his Jazz Age muse. He wanted to recapture a past that had never existed in the first place."

Z is a captivating and marvelous depiction of two literary greats battling a changing world and each other. I never once doubted that the narrator of Z is Zelda herself, as if Fowler channeled this woman's very essence as she wrote the novel. And while I found myself furious with Scott by the end of the book (and furious with Zelda for not having the strength to move past him), I understood both of them and the complicated ties that bound them. This is a fascinating novel. I recommend it highly.

Fowler has turned Zelda into a commonplace woman. She has retold events and added fairly dialog. It the most prosaic of dialog. It seems to me that there is no understanding of bipolar disorder, and certainly no realistic portrayal of its onset and the frenetic mental processes. If you want to grasp a glimspe of the spark, the flame of Zelda, read Nancy Milford's biography. It has deeper research and is far more readable than this rehash.

This book reminded me of a lifetime TV movie. It was really slow to start,was a bit more interesting in the middle, and had a depressing ending. She threw a bunch of "names" around to make it feel like a documentary, and yet it was written like a romance novel. I just never was able to relate to the characters or even like them very much. I kept on reading because my book club voted for this book for May. At least I didn't loose my summer vacation time reading Zelda.

As a psychiatrist I was interested in Zelda's mental health, and all of the rumors that had been spread of her schizophrenia. i was glad to read that the diagnosis has been changed to bipolar disorder as this seems to fit her behavior, the onset of her symptomatology and the recurrent nature of the process more appropriately.

"Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald" is another contribution to the trend in fiction of using historical personalities as the main characters. Our book club has read several of these books, and while I've enjoyed them, it's very important to remember that these are not non-fiction books. Not every scene happened in real life, and as we have no way to know what is fictional and what is not it's important to treat it all as fiction.

Regarding Z in particular, I enjoyed the tale of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. The book is well-paced and keeps the reader's attention throughout. My only complaint, which unfortunately dogged the entire book, was Fowler's insistence on portraying Zelda's Alabama accent by dropping the gees of her words. Rather than conveying the idea of an accent, instead it conveyed the image that Zelda didn't speak well or wasn't very bright. Throughout the book Zelda was lovin' Scott, hatin' Scott, drinkin', dancin', and partyin' into the early mornin' hours. It was irritating, and even more irritating, inconsistent. Her accent could have been mentioned in other ways to keep the reader remembering that she had it. For example, a character could say, "Why, Mrs. Fitzgerald, you have such a charming southern accent!" There were multiple references to Alabama, and she and Scott met there, so clearly she'd have had some accent. I don't know if it was all that important anyway.

If you like "Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald," check out "The Paris Wife," by Paula McLain. Many scenes from that book are duplicated here, so it's interesting to see situations portrayed from another point of view. I highly recommend "The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb" and "The Aviator's Wife," by Melanie Benjamin. Benjamin does this non-fiction-as-fiction writing better than anyone.

This book is okay. I've read a lot of ex pat stuff so this just seemed like more of the same, but perhaps not written as well as Hemingway or Fitzgerald himself may have been able to do it. The author states that she has tried to be as factual as possible, but even so it's hard to know how much of this is story and how much is reality. It gives you an interesting glimpse into Zelda's head and world which is a new and interesting perspective and I guess enjoyable in that sense. It's a very fast read I blew through it in two days without trying. I give the author credit as she says that she had a hard time finding any Fitzgerald expert htat was neutral all either fell in the Zelda or Fitzgerald camp. I think she wanted to be fair and let the reader decided and I think that she accomplished that - so I do applaud her for not trying to paint either as a devil or an angel.

N.C. State alumna and author Therese Anne Fowler brings the life and scandal of the infamous Fitzgeralds back into the limelight in Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. While much attention is given to Francis Scott Fitzgerald, author of the classic Tender is the Night and the famous The Great Gatsby, few know about the woman standing behind him.
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was born on a southern plantation in Montgomery, Ala., and was raised to be a true southern belle. The only problem was her lack of interest in proper southern society and her increasing interest in the numerous suitors she graced with her attention. In her novel, Fowler does an excellent job of revealing the true identity of Zelda’s young romance with the Yankee military recruit Fitzgerald.
Going against her family’s wishes, Zelda is caught up in a whirlwind of love and promise from her aspiring author lover who had big dreams of becoming published in New York. The tone echoes the lofty dreams and youthful innocence of young Zelda in the early stages of love and marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fowler does not fall short in detailing the couple’s days in bed and nights on the town. The 1920’s offered dancing, luxury and booze to the dreamy duo, as well as a few documented acts of frivolity that cemented their reputation as the perfect party pair.
With the carefree life of riches came a time of hardship and seriousness in their marriage. Francis and Zelda were both young when they exchanged vows, so when the realness of marriage and life began to catch up to the couple, Zelda saw the true colors of her husband. Instead of leaning on his young wife for support, Francis turned to the liquor cabinet and desperately tried to find happiness and inspiration at the bottom of the bottles.
Again, Fowler does not shy away from the stumbling steps that would ultimately lead to the downfall of Zelda and Francis. She also goes behind the curtain to break down the façade of perfection built up by the Fitzgeralds. Francis’ struggle with alcohol and irresponsibility with finances often pushed Zelda to the breaking point and left her questioning the decisions that led to the life she was living.
The relationships that influenced the Fitzgeralds and their time in France are also included in the historical novel. Using her as the first person narrator, Fowler lets Zelda share her feelings about her husband’s relationship with the offensive and drunken Ernest Hemingway and her disdain for her husband’s actions when he is under the influence.
Fowler does not soften the pressures felt by the couple when F. Scott was not writing or the jealousy problems presented when Zelda picked up the pen and paper and found success in a few short stories. Instead, Fowler takes the reader on the emotional roller coaster felt by the broken narrator as she watched her life, her husband and herself begin to fall apart.
Zelda’s troubled mental state is also addressed in the novel, but rather than taking on the omniscient third person narrator, Fowler allows the confused and anxious Zelda to tell her story of being locked away and treated for trying to follow dreams which were restricted by her husband. As Zelda’s mental state deteriorates, so does the coherence of the story.
The romanticized, shiny life of the Jazz Age is tarnished in Fowler’s fictionalized biography. Though there are times the reader must slog through another drunken episode with Mr. Fitzgerald or another feared affair with Zelda, the book is comprehensive in its account of the woman F. Scott Fitzgerald dubbed “the first American flapper.”

Original article here:[...]

This is a great fictional account of the relationship and marriage of Zelda Sayre and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though it is fictional, author Therese Anne Fowler has definately done extensive research on her subjects in "Z".

I have read Zelda's biography and many of Scott's works and I think that this book does a great job of reading between the lines and does separate some facts from fiction in this story about the Jazz Age couple.

From their bumpy beginnings to their glamorous nightlife escapades, and then ultimate tradgic ends, Z gives Zelda a resounding voice and tells the tale of a couple who seemed in the beginning to have it all. They were people that others wanted to be as they rubbed elbows with Dorothy Parker, "H. L." Mencken, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Hemingway, Ziegfeld, and many other celebrities in New York, Paris and elsewhere.

This book was a joy to read and I loved every page of it. It brought to life all the struggles and joys the Fitzgeralds endured during their brief, but lively lifetimes. Zelda struggled to maintain an independant identity that was always overshadowed by her husband's accomplishments and over indulging habits. Zelda's relationship with Hemingway, who Scott was smitten with, is accutely described as Hemingway was someone who often dominated her husband's time as he caused wedges in the Fitzgerald's marriage, for whatever villainous or egotistical reasons. The way Fowler portrays Hemingway in Zelda's eyes to me, was very well done. Scott's excessive drinking is also examined through Zelda's eyes and how the extreme lifestyle eventually wore the couple down health wise as well as finacially.

I applaud this work. I think it will tie in nicely when The Great Gatsby comes out in Spring. I would recommend 'Z' to fans of Scott and Zelda for a biopic view of how life probably was for Zelda. The author did a great job of portraying their lifestyles, ups and downs and all the moving about and travels as well as Zelda's mental health struggles. Great Job.

My book group met this week to discuss Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and almost everyone enjoyed it.

I think many readers are somewhat familiar with Zelda's story, a Southern Belle who meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a dance in 1918 when she was only seventeen. She sees him as exotic, exciting and desirable. Her father is against the marriage as he isn't a Southerner and doesn't come from a prominent family or have money. He assures Zelda that his writing will bring them fame and money.

Although their Jazz Era life style is exciting and a series of travels and endless parties, their marriage is in trouble early on. Both drink too much and Scott is a mean drunk. He's physically and verbally abusive and, he has a way of crushing Zelda's every dream: actress, dancer, artist and writer. If that's not bad enough he's a womanizer and hadn't been very successful as a writer so the couple is always broke.

When Zelda needs to stop drinking for health reasons she busies herself in ballet and writing but, her marriage starts to crumble and Scott needs new drinking buddies. Zelda definitely exhibits some form of mental illness (our group differed on whether she suffered from bipolar or schizophrenia) and whether Scott was the major cause of her breakdowns or whether she was victim of society during that time -- her ambitions stifled.

The story is told from Zelda's POV mostly from the time the couple met until the end of their relationship. Despite their love for one another they were disastrous for one another. Scott had a huge ego and was terribly insecure and his behavior at times seemed to worsen Zelda's mental health issues. I felt for Zelda at times, I thought her judgement was so much keener than Scott's yet she differed to her husband as women at that time were expected to do.

The author does a great job of capturing Zelda's voice -- both at the high and low points of her life. Zelda was intelligent but, she was a woman born generations too early when ambition in women was not seen as a favorable trait. Although a work of fiction, I thought this book served as a very good intro to Zelda and Scott lives.

QUOTE I liked --"Single women could work all they wanted; married women locked themselves into a gilded cage. All of that seemed natural before. Now it made me angry. Now I saw how a woman might sometimes want to steer her own course rather than trail her husband like a favored dog."

4.5/5 stars

Therese Anne Fowler's Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, was recommended to me by two people whose opinions I highly respect when it comes to historical novels, so I picked it up in hopes of not only a good read, but one that would give me a sense of who the real Zelda was. I got both, and have to say I'm truly enamored of this book.

Told in first person, we follow wild Zelda from the time she meets Scott Fitzgerald in 1918 through the time of his death in 1940. To say Zelda's headstrong and a forceful personality would be an understatement; falling in love with a character almost her personality twin was a recipe for disaster. Zelda is led to New York City and the wandering life of her writer husband; between the two of them, much alcohol is consumed and much wildness ensues. For a short time around the birth of her daughter, Zelda and Scott try to settle down, but the drive to write and the need to party overtakes both, and they find themselves living in Paris, no true roots for either. Zelda watches as Scott continuously tries to write, his self-doubt and inability to focus almost destroying them, but she is not blameless either. Moving from one place to the next, always looking for a good time, their lives truly begin to disintegrate when Scott strikes up an all-encompassing friendship with Ernest Hemingway. Zelda grows jealous; Hemingway grows disdainful; Scott sinks into alcohol. Things go from bad to worse when Zelda essentially has a breakdown and ends up in a sanitarium, the first of many. There will be no happy ending for the Fitzgeralds.

I did not know much about Zelda beyond the basics when I picked this novel up, but it feels as though Ms. Fowler has nailed her impetuousness and her manic ways perfectly. Reading the author's note, much of what appears is based on the facts of the arrogant, nomadic lifestyle of two creative forces colliding. Along the way, I grew to love Zelda for who she was, reveling in the author's well-written interpretation of a life lived fully but wasted nonetheless. Definitely a story for the ages, and a highly recommended read.

Fowler's fictionalized portrait of Zelda Fitzgerald gets some things right, many others wrong, and like her subject whom she has constantly bemoaning her failures, herself fails Zelda.

What's right about the book is that it covers the Fitzgeralds' high times as the couple epitomizing the Jazz Age. Fowler does a decent job of recreating their time in New York, Paris, and on the coast of France.

Zelda's early life in Montgomery and Scott's courtship of her are slow and dull (not to mention perhaps one of the worst prologues you'll read in a long while), but the book livens up in New York. How Zelda and Scott managed to maintain their frenetic lifestyle for as long as they did boggles the mind and the normal body that craves rest even reading about their exploits.

The book much improves when Hemingway enters the picture. Between Zelda and Hem, it's enmity almost at first sight. Then we get to the part where Zelda believes Hem's macho bravado hides more than deep insecurity about his manhood; it masks homosexuality. And then she suspects Scott and Hem of sexual relations. That's not quite as outrageous as it might sound, for Hem did have emasculation, feminization, and androgynous issues. Who wouldn't with an overbearing mother who refused to shear his locks and dressed him like his sister? (See Kenneth S. Lynn, Hemingway for more on Hem's issues.) Zelda's other problem with Hem: the guy was a first-class SOB, mooch, and backstabber.

You'll notice I'm talking about Fitz and Hem and not much about Zelda. Here's where the novelized life story goes awry. Everybody is more interesting than Zelda, who sounds kind of whiney. She wants to accomplish something as a writer, a dancer, a painter, but she can't, coming off as a dilettante. It's Scott's fault because he uproots her constantly, he manipulates her, he controls her, and, finally, he doesn't love or respect her. Yes, she was a woman with plenty of potential. That she didn't live up to it perhaps is partly Scott's doing, as he couldn't stand competition. The other part, though, is that she was an ill woman suffering from bi-polar disorder that was woefully misdiagnosed during what could have been her most productive years. Fowler doesn't focus nearly enough on Zelda's illness. When she does, she spends much time on the sexist attitude of the doctors. Most assuredly, sexist attitudes were the tenor of the times. Betty Friedan got it exactly right decades later in the The Feminine Mystique (50th Anniversary Edition), still worth reading.

But more than anything, the tone of the book feels wrong. Modern expressions pop up with regularity. Worse, though, you never get the sense you're hearing Zelda's true voice even though she's telling her story. And you never get the sense you're feeling the pain she must have felt in the throes of her illness and sexual rejection by Scott. Fowler's approach strikes you more like genre writing, a little romance, a little "chic lit." It would have been a so much more engrossing and enlightening book had Fowler emptied herself of herself and filled the void with Zelda. To see what would result, how much more powerful the fictionalized life would be, read Joyce Carol Oates fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe, Blonde: A Novel, a masterpiece of psychological dissection.

So, an okay attempt at bringing life to Zelda, but not nearly what it could or should have been. And you might want to read biographies of the principals to determine if some things, in particular personalities and relationships, ring true.

I think this novel will be absolute perfection for readers who just want a quick romp through the years of Zelda's life that are most relevant to her role as the wife of a famous and very troubled writer. There's almost nothing in the book about her life before she met Scott, and only a brief Afterword covering the years from when Scott died in 1940 until her death in 1948.

What you get here is a look at the years when the Fitzgeralds were the golden couple, and Zelda was the Jazz Age Priestess. These years were followed by the long decline of their relationship, exacerbated by their peripatetic lifestyle, Scott's worsening alcoholism, and Zelda's troubles with what may or may not have been mental illness.

Fowler takes us back in time and lets us hang out with these people and see the challenges and temptations they faced as products of their era. The author has a real flair for dialogue, and a wonderful ability to create a sense of time and place using just the right amount of period detail. If you love historical fiction that never gets boring, you're going to love this novel.

Just prior to receiving this novel, I read two biographies of Zelda. If you've read much nonfiction about her, you may find yourself puzzling over why certain key people and events were barely mentioned or entirely left out of this novel.

You may also find, as I did, that the way Fowler portrays Zelda does not match your interpretation of her personality. This was especially noticeable for me because the novel is written in the first person, using Zelda's voice. I would have preferred a third-person narrative, which might have allowed us to get closer to some of the other characters. On the whole, though, I found that my previous reading about Zelda enhanced my enjoyment of the novel. I was able to fill in the gaps with what I gleaned from nonfiction accounts.

I'm inclined to believe that both Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald were even more diabolical in their treatment of Zelda than is shown in this novel. Their badgering and cruelty were huge factors contributing to her nervousness and emotional instability, as well as to the general perception that she was "crazy." This opinion comes largely from my reading of Sally Cline's excellent work, Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise. I have not yet read any biographies of Scott. My understanding is that his biographers portray him in a much more favorable and sympathetic light.

If anything I've said here seems uncomplimentary, that's certainly not my intent. Therese Fowler's careful research is evident on every page, and her writing is truly a pleasure to read. The only readers who might be disappointed are those looking for greater detail and a broader scope. This novel is a delightful introduction to Zelda and an invitation to learn more about her life.

Who loved the Paris Wife by Paula McLain? The Paris Wife was Hadley Hemingway's story. Zelda Fitzgerald was also part of her story. Therese Anne Fowler explores Zelda's story in Z A NOVEL of ZELDA FITZGERALD. How did she meet Scott Fitzgerald? What was she like as a person?
Synopsis:
Zelda is from Birmingham Alabama. Her father was one the most well-known judges of that time. She is their youngest of the family and most spoiled. The rules seem to never apply to her. Out with friends she meets young Lt. F. Scott Fitzgerald. They seem to hit it off. They first met during the waning years of World War I. Once the war was over and Scott goes back to New York what will happen to their relationship? Zelda wants to marry Scott but is not sure he will meet the financial requirements. Once this problem is solved then it is off to married life and trips to Europe. Scott wants to go over to France so he can feel inspired to finish his novel. What happens when he meets the popular Ernest Hemingway? How does this change Scott’s relationship with Zelda?
My Thoughts:
I thought that Zelda’s story was interesting. I loved reading about the time in Paris. I always envisioned Zelda as being flighty not very intelligent. Ms. Fowler created the character of Zelda. The character has one trait that surprised me, her intelligence. I felt for her with the misogynistic behavior of her husband and Hemingway. I am glad to see that times have changed with the role of women. I had a desire to seek out the Fitzgerald family tree to see what became of her descendants.
Therese Fowler weaves an interesting picture of Zelda Fitzgerald.

I truly enjoyed this book and it gave me an interesting perspective on Zelda. She is often the mad women married to Scott who needs to be locked away, but this book changed my mind about the woman I had heard so many bad stories about.I think this books does a fair job of describing Scott as well. He was a man of his time. His desire for a son was very interesting and at times was almost obsessive. I dont think he is made out to be the villain at all. I found him sympathetic.

I wont go into to plot details as others have done, but I will say that I enjoyed the writing. The characters were well developed and this book just helped me to dislike Hemingway all the more! Such a horrid man!

After reading this novel, I was unaware that Zelda had written a few short stories on her own and quickly bought a book that included them. I am reading them now and find them interesting. I wonder what would have happened if she had been able to explore her creativity more. Could she have made a name for herself and been a best selling author?

Overall an excellent novel and I look forward to future books by this author!

Therese Anne Fowler's Z is a fictionalized recreation of the life of Zelda Fitzgerald from her origins in Montgomery, Alabama to the death of her husband in 1940.

The novel is told mostly in the first person, from the point of view of an idealistic if naive woman who leaves her traditional family in the South to marry Scott Fitzgerald, and embarks on a dizzying life of parties, social gatherings, chance encounters and drunken revelries in all parts of the world. The narrator comes across as a sensation-seeking personality, someone who wants to experience life viscerally as an alternative to the roles expected of her as a daughter, wife and mother. A talented person in her own right, she spends her life trying to express herself while being married to a spouse who, despite his talent, remains at heart a child, unable to move beyond patriarchal notions of gender.

Scott Fitzgerald comes off quite badly in this novel - a hugely talented person with major personality flaws. He drinks to excess; spends a lot of time associating with people such as Ernest Hemingway (whom Zelda does not rate at all); chases women and socializes; in other words, doing anything to avoid the onerous business of writing. After the failure of THE GREAT GATSBY (1925), it seems as if he lost the will to write; the next novel he published, TENDER IS THE NIGHT (1934), was almost entirely based on Zelda's experiences in various psychiatric wards. Unable to resolve the psychological demons within himself, he transfers his resentments on to Zelda by accusing her of various faults including disloyalty and irresponsibility.

Yet despite the marriage gradually souring, Zelda stays with her husband. She still loves him in a strange way; perhaps because of his child-like irresponsibility. There are perhaps two occasions when she contemplates a divorce, but neither of them are really serious. Perhaps she is looking for something else - not independence, perhaps, but rather to be recognized on her own terms as an artist, not simply Scott Fitzgerald's spouse.

The characterization is convincing; the style less so. We don't get much sense of Zelda's gradually degenerating psychological state, as she suffers from bipolar disorder. The forces ranged against her are portrayed as indifferent and uncaring: the doctors aren't there to cure her, but rather to keep her away from her husband. Yet we don't get any sense of her frustrations, or the strategies she might adopt to cope with her ordeal. We understand how she loses her self-esteem, but we don't see precisely how her conception of the division between "madness" and "sanity" is gradually eroded. On the contrary Fowler's language veers toward the banal, as if reluctant to engage at a deeper level with Zelda's complexities.

The book ends rather abruptly with a fast forward in time until Scott Fitzgerald's death. We don't hear much about her time in hospital, which is a shame, in view of the fact that this focus might have rendered the book more interesting. Instead Fowler chooses to rehearse familiar stereotypes about the Jazz Age and the Smart Set running wild in France during the Twenties. The writing is colorful, but covers over-used ground.

Z is a reasonable read, but is a little short on insight.

I liked this book when I started reading it, but as the Fitzgeralds drank, partied, fought, gambled, spent money across a number of locations, I became more and more depressed. It was hard to finish the book because we all know their lives ended tragically. Because Zelda wasn't allowed to be creative, but had to suppress her talents so that Scott could be the only shining star in the family, it seemed like her life was a big ZERO. The feckless life they led added to this impression. She could have been so much more than she was allowed to be. (And if Scott hadn't been an alcoholic, he too could have produced more great works than he actually did.) What was strange though toward the end of the book, when Zelda was supposed to be mentally ill, the narrative she was sharing was very clear and coherent. If she was actually mentally ill, why didn't the author describe that? Why didn't Zelda hear voices and see things that weren't there? Why wasn't she paranoid that people (other than Scott) were coming to get her? Zelda's coherence didn't match up with her supposed mental illness. Anyway, I just felt so sad and depressed after reading this book. Maybe this means it was a good book because it had such an effect on me, but I still can't give it more than 3 stars.

(3.5 stars) This is a historical fiction novel about the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, from when they first met, with Zelda at 17, and a somewhat wild Southern belle, and F. Scott, as a Yankee young lieutenant, about to be shipped out for training and then on to the battlefronts of WWI. Her father is completely unimpressed with this dreamer as a suitor for his daughter, but she falls for him, and after the sale of his first novel, jumps on a train to New York to be his bride. Their life together coincides with the Jazz age, and the two flow from one giant party to the next, with the money flowing out at an alarming rate. He begins to resent the impact of the short story work that pays the bills, and to save they move to Paris, beginning a new series of salons and parties. The great divider of their relationship is Ernest Hemingway, who becomes an enemy of Zelda early on. As Zelda begins to try to find her own identity, separate from her roles as wife and mother, their relationship becomes more strained, finally coming to a breaking point for Zelda. The book provides an interesting perspective on Zelda as her own woman.

(3.5 stars)

In 1920, Zelda Sayre, a nineteen-year-old girl from Montgomery, Alabama, hops onto a train to New York City to marry F. Scott Fitzgerald. Within months, the couple is widely known among New York City’s society. The two of them stay up all night to drink and party and sleep until afternoon. This lifestyle leaves marks and so it doesn’t come as a surprise that Scott has problems concentrating on his writing.
The couple move to France where Scott is supposed to finish his novel undisturbed. This is where they meet some of the most influential artists and writers of the 20th century and their marriage starts to get complicated.

Therese Anne Fowler is very good at creating a suitable atmosphere. The depiction of surreal 1920s parties, the arty Paris salons and the increasing bleakness Zelda faces in France help to get a better understanding of the world she lives in and what it must be like for her to deal with it.

Z starts out as a cheerful, exciting novel and steadily drifts into a melancholic, desolate mood, which mirrors Zelda’s physical and mental health. This also affects the novel’s pace which slows down after the couple leave for Paris the first time. Reading Z, it becomes clear that you probably wouldn’t want to swap places with Zelda. In the end, she is nothing more than another wife who isn’t able to do what she wants just because her husband says so – and that is a complete understatement.

This is a great fictional account of the relationship and marriage of Zelda Sayre and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though it is fictional, author Therese Anne Fowler has definately done extensive research on her subjects in "Z".

I have read Zelda's biography and many of Scott's works and I think that this book does a great job of reading between the lines and does separate some facts from fiction in this story about the Jazz Age couple.

From their bumpy beginnings to their glamorous nightlife escapades, and then ultimate tradgic ends, Z gives Zelda a resounding voice and tells the tale of a couple who seemed in the beginning to have it all. They were people that others wanted to be as they rubbed elbows with Dorothy Parker, "H. L." Mencken, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Hemingway, Ziegfeld, and many other celebrities in New York, Paris and elsewhere.

This book was a joy to read and I loved every page of it. It brought to life all the struggles and joys the Fitzgeralds endured during their brief, but lively lifetimes. Zelda struggled to maintain an independant identity that was always overshadowed by her husband's accomplishments and over indulging habits. Zelda's relationship with Hemingway, who Scott was smitten with, is accutely described as Hemingway was someone who often dominated her husband's time as he caused wedges in the Fitzgerald's marriage, for whatever villainous or egotistical reasons. The way Fowler portrays Hemingway in Zelda's eyes to me, was very well done. Scott's excessive drinking is also examined through Zelda's eyes and how the extreme lifestyle eventually wore the couple down health wise as well as finacially.

I applaud this work. I think it will tie in nicely when The Great Gatsby comes out in Spring. I would recommend 'Z' to fans of Scott and Zelda for a biopic view of how life probably was for Zelda. The author did a great job of portraying their lifestyles, ups and downs and all the moving about and travels as well as Zelda's mental health struggles. Great Job.

My book group met this week to discuss Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and almost everyone enjoyed it.

I think many readers are somewhat familiar with Zelda's story, a Southern Belle who meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a dance in 1918 when she was only seventeen. She sees him as exotic, exciting and desirable. Her father is against the marriage as he isn't a Southerner and doesn't come from a prominent family or have money. He assures Zelda that his writing will bring them fame and money.

Although their Jazz Era life style is exciting and a series of travels and endless parties, their marriage is in trouble early on. Both drink too much and Scott is a mean drunk. He's physically and verbally abusive and, he has a way of crushing Zelda's every dream: actress, dancer, artist and writer. If that's not bad enough he's a womanizer and hadn't been very successful as a writer so the couple is always broke.

When Zelda needs to stop drinking for health reasons she busies herself in ballet and writing but, her marriage starts to crumble and Scott needs new drinking buddies. Zelda definitely exhibits some form of mental illness (our group differed on whether she suffered from bipolar or schizophrenia) and whether Scott was the major cause of her breakdowns or whether she was victim of society during that time -- her ambitions stifled.

The story is told from Zelda's POV mostly from the time the couple met until the end of their relationship. Despite their love for one another they were disastrous for one another. Scott had a huge ego and was terribly insecure and his behavior at times seemed to worsen Zelda's mental health issues. I felt for Zelda at times, I thought her judgement was so much keener than Scott's yet she differed to her husband as women at that time were expected to do.

The author does a great job of capturing Zelda's voice -- both at the high and low points of her life. Zelda was intelligent but, she was a woman born generations too early when ambition in women was not seen as a favorable trait. Although a work of fiction, I thought this book served as a very good intro to Zelda and Scott lives.

QUOTE I liked --"Single women could work all they wanted; married women locked themselves into a gilded cage. All of that seemed natural before. Now it made me angry. Now I saw how a woman might sometimes want to steer her own course rather than trail her husband like a favored dog."

4.5/5 stars

Therese Anne Fowler's Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, was recommended to me by two people whose opinions I highly respect when it comes to historical novels, so I picked it up in hopes of not only a good read, but one that would give me a sense of who the real Zelda was. I got both, and have to say I'm truly enamored of this book.

Told in first person, we follow wild Zelda from the time she meets Scott Fitzgerald in 1918 through the time of his death in 1940. To say Zelda's headstrong and a forceful personality would be an understatement; falling in love with a character almost her personality twin was a recipe for disaster. Zelda is led to New York City and the wandering life of her writer husband; between the two of them, much alcohol is consumed and much wildness ensues. For a short time around the birth of her daughter, Zelda and Scott try to settle down, but the drive to write and the need to party overtakes both, and they find themselves living in Paris, no true roots for either. Zelda watches as Scott continuously tries to write, his self-doubt and inability to focus almost destroying them, but she is not blameless either. Moving from one place to the next, always looking for a good time, their lives truly begin to disintegrate when Scott strikes up an all-encompassing friendship with Ernest Hemingway. Zelda grows jealous; Hemingway grows disdainful; Scott sinks into alcohol. Things go from bad to worse when Zelda essentially has a breakdown and ends up in a sanitarium, the first of many. There will be no happy ending for the Fitzgeralds.

I did not know much about Zelda beyond the basics when I picked this novel up, but it feels as though Ms. Fowler has nailed her impetuousness and her manic ways perfectly. Reading the author's note, much of what appears is based on the facts of the arrogant, nomadic lifestyle of two creative forces colliding. Along the way, I grew to love Zelda for who she was, reveling in the author's well-written interpretation of a life lived fully but wasted nonetheless. Definitely a story for the ages, and a highly recommended read.

Fowler's fictionalized portrait of Zelda Fitzgerald gets some things right, many others wrong, and like her subject whom she has constantly bemoaning her failures, herself fails Zelda.

What's right about the book is that it covers the Fitzgeralds' high times as the couple epitomizing the Jazz Age. Fowler does a decent job of recreating their time in New York, Paris, and on the coast of France.

Zelda's early life in Montgomery and Scott's courtship of her are slow and dull (not to mention perhaps one of the worst prologues you'll read in a long while), but the book livens up in New York. How Zelda and Scott managed to maintain their frenetic lifestyle for as long as they did boggles the mind and the normal body that craves rest even reading about their exploits.

The book much improves when Hemingway enters the picture. Between Zelda and Hem, it's enmity almost at first sight. Then we get to the part where Zelda believes Hem's macho bravado hides more than deep insecurity about his manhood; it masks homosexuality. And then she suspects Scott and Hem of sexual relations. That's not quite as outrageous as it might sound, for Hem did have emasculation, feminization, and androgynous issues. Who wouldn't with an overbearing mother who refused to shear his locks and dressed him like his sister? (See Kenneth S. Lynn, Hemingway for more on Hem's issues.) Zelda's other problem with Hem: the guy was a first-class SOB, mooch, and backstabber.

You'll notice I'm talking about Fitz and Hem and not much about Zelda. Here's where the novelized life story goes awry. Everybody is more interesting than Zelda, who sounds kind of whiney. She wants to accomplish something as a writer, a dancer, a painter, but she can't, coming off as a dilettante. It's Scott's fault because he uproots her constantly, he manipulates her, he controls her, and, finally, he doesn't love or respect her. Yes, she was a woman with plenty of potential. That she didn't live up to it perhaps is partly Scott's doing, as he couldn't stand competition. The other part, though, is that she was an ill woman suffering from bi-polar disorder that was woefully misdiagnosed during what could have been her most productive years. Fowler doesn't focus nearly enough on Zelda's illness. When she does, she spends much time on the sexist attitude of the doctors. Most assuredly, sexist attitudes were the tenor of the times. Betty Friedan got it exactly right decades later in the The Feminine Mystique (50th Anniversary Edition), still worth reading.

But more than anything, the tone of the book feels wrong. Modern expressions pop up with regularity. Worse, though, you never get the sense you're hearing Zelda's true voice even though she's telling her story. And you never get the sense you're feeling the pain she must have felt in the throes of her illness and sexual rejection by Scott. Fowler's approach strikes you more like genre writing, a little romance, a little "chic lit." It would have been a so much more engrossing and enlightening book had Fowler emptied herself of herself and filled the void with Zelda. To see what would result, how much more powerful the fictionalized life would be, read Joyce Carol Oates fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe, Blonde: A Novel, a masterpiece of psychological dissection.

So, an okay attempt at bringing life to Zelda, but not nearly what it could or should have been. And you might want to read biographies of the principals to determine if some things, in particular personalities and relationships, ring true.

I think this novel will be absolute perfection for readers who just want a quick romp through the years of Zelda's life that are most relevant to her role as the wife of a famous and very troubled writer. There's almost nothing in the book about her life before she met Scott, and only a brief Afterword covering the years from when Scott died in 1940 until her death in 1948.

What you get here is a look at the years when the Fitzgeralds were the golden couple, and Zelda was the Jazz Age Priestess. These years were followed by the long decline of their relationship, exacerbated by their peripatetic lifestyle, Scott's worsening alcoholism, and Zelda's troubles with what may or may not have been mental illness.

Fowler takes us back in time and lets us hang out with these people and see the challenges and temptations they faced as products of their era. The author has a real flair for dialogue, and a wonderful ability to create a sense of time and place using just the right amount of period detail. If you love historical fiction that never gets boring, you're going to love this novel.

Just prior to receiving this novel, I read two biographies of Zelda. If you've read much nonfiction about her, you may find yourself puzzling over why certain key people and events were barely mentioned or entirely left out of this novel.

You may also find, as I did, that the way Fowler portrays Zelda does not match your interpretation of her personality. This was especially noticeable for me because the novel is written in the first person, using Zelda's voice. I would have preferred a third-person narrative, which might have allowed us to get closer to some of the other characters. On the whole, though, I found that my previous reading about Zelda enhanced my enjoyment of the novel. I was able to fill in the gaps with what I gleaned from nonfiction accounts.

I'm inclined to believe that both Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald were even more diabolical in their treatment of Zelda than is shown in this novel. Their badgering and cruelty were huge factors contributing to her nervousness and emotional instability, as well as to the general perception that she was "crazy." This opinion comes largely from my reading of Sally Cline's excellent work, Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise. I have not yet read any biographies of Scott. My understanding is that his biographers portray him in a much more favorable and sympathetic light.

If anything I've said here seems uncomplimentary, that's certainly not my intent. Therese Fowler's careful research is evident on every page, and her writing is truly a pleasure to read. The only readers who might be disappointed are those looking for greater detail and a broader scope. This novel is a delightful introduction to Zelda and an invitation to learn more about her life.

Who loved the Paris Wife by Paula McLain? The Paris Wife was Hadley Hemingway's story. Zelda Fitzgerald was also part of her story. Therese Anne Fowler explores Zelda's story in Z A NOVEL of ZELDA FITZGERALD. How did she meet Scott Fitzgerald? What was she like as a person?
Synopsis:
Zelda is from Birmingham Alabama. Her father was one the most well-known judges of that time. She is their youngest of the family and most spoiled. The rules seem to never apply to her. Out with friends she meets young Lt. F. Scott Fitzgerald. They seem to hit it off. They first met during the waning years of World War I. Once the war was over and Scott goes back to New York what will happen to their relationship? Zelda wants to marry Scott but is not sure he will meet the financial requirements. Once this problem is solved then it is off to married life and trips to Europe. Scott wants to go over to France so he can feel inspired to finish his novel. What happens when he meets the popular Ernest Hemingway? How does this change Scott’s relationship with Zelda?
My Thoughts:
I thought that Zelda’s story was interesting. I loved reading about the time in Paris. I always envisioned Zelda as being flighty not very intelligent. Ms. Fowler created the character of Zelda. The character has one trait that surprised me, her intelligence. I felt for her with the misogynistic behavior of her husband and Hemingway. I am glad to see that times have changed with the role of women. I had a desire to seek out the Fitzgerald family tree to see what became of her descendants.
Therese Fowler weaves an interesting picture of Zelda Fitzgerald.

I truly enjoyed this book and it gave me an interesting perspective on Zelda. She is often the mad women married to Scott who needs to be locked away, but this book changed my mind about the woman I had heard so many bad stories about.I think this books does a fair job of describing Scott as well. He was a man of his time. His desire for a son was very interesting and at times was almost obsessive. I dont think he is made out to be the villain at all. I found him sympathetic.

I wont go into to plot details as others have done, but I will say that I enjoyed the writing. The characters were well developed and this book just helped me to dislike Hemingway all the more! Such a horrid man!

After reading this novel, I was unaware that Zelda had written a few short stories on her own and quickly bought a book that included them. I am reading them now and find them interesting. I wonder what would have happened if she had been able to explore her creativity more. Could she have made a name for herself and been a best selling author?

Overall an excellent novel and I look forward to future books by this author!

Therese Anne Fowler's Z is a fictionalized recreation of the life of Zelda Fitzgerald from her origins in Montgomery, Alabama to the death of her husband in 1940.

The novel is told mostly in the first person, from the point of view of an idealistic if naive woman who leaves her traditional family in the South to marry Scott Fitzgerald, and embarks on a dizzying life of parties, social gatherings, chance encounters and drunken revelries in all parts of the world. The narrator comes across as a sensation-seeking personality, someone who wants to experience life viscerally as an alternative to the roles expected of her as a daughter, wife and mother. A talented person in her own right, she spends her life trying to express herself while being married to a spouse who, despite his talent, remains at heart a child, unable to move beyond patriarchal notions of gender.

Scott Fitzgerald comes off quite badly in this novel - a hugely talented person with major personality flaws. He drinks to excess; spends a lot of time associating with people such as Ernest Hemingway (whom Zelda does not rate at all); chases women and socializes; in other words, doing anything to avoid the onerous business of writing. After the failure of THE GREAT GATSBY (1925), it seems as if he lost the will to write; the next novel he published, TENDER IS THE NIGHT (1934), was almost entirely based on Zelda's experiences in various psychiatric wards. Unable to resolve the psychological demons within himself, he transfers his resentments on to Zelda by accusing her of various faults including disloyalty and irresponsibility.

Yet despite the marriage gradually souring, Zelda stays with her husband. She still loves him in a strange way; perhaps because of his child-like irresponsibility. There are perhaps two occasions when she contemplates a divorce, but neither of them are really serious. Perhaps she is looking for something else - not independence, perhaps, but rather to be recognized on her own terms as an artist, not simply Scott Fitzgerald's spouse.

The characterization is convincing; the style less so. We don't get much sense of Zelda's gradually degenerating psychological state, as she suffers from bipolar disorder. The forces ranged against her are portrayed as indifferent and uncaring: the doctors aren't there to cure her, but rather to keep her away from her husband. Yet we don't get any sense of her frustrations, or the strategies she might adopt to cope with her ordeal. We understand how she loses her self-esteem, but we don't see precisely how her conception of the division between "madness" and "sanity" is gradually eroded. On the contrary Fowler's language veers toward the banal, as if reluctant to engage at a deeper level with Zelda's complexities.

The book ends rather abruptly with a fast forward in time until Scott Fitzgerald's death. We don't hear much about her time in hospital, which is a shame, in view of the fact that this focus might have rendered the book more interesting. Instead Fowler chooses to rehearse familiar stereotypes about the Jazz Age and the Smart Set running wild in France during the Twenties. The writing is colorful, but covers over-used ground.

Z is a reasonable read, but is a little short on insight.

I liked this book when I started reading it, but as the Fitzgeralds drank, partied, fought, gambled, spent money across a number of locations, I became more and more depressed. It was hard to finish the book because we all know their lives ended tragically. Because Zelda wasn't allowed to be creative, but had to suppress her talents so that Scott could be the only shining star in the family, it seemed like her life was a big ZERO. The feckless life they led added to this impression. She could have been so much more than she was allowed to be. (And if Scott hadn't been an alcoholic, he too could have produced more great works than he actually did.) What was strange though toward the end of the book, when Zelda was supposed to be mentally ill, the narrative she was sharing was very clear and coherent. If she was actually mentally ill, why didn't the author describe that? Why didn't Zelda hear voices and see things that weren't there? Why wasn't she paranoid that people (other than Scott) were coming to get her? Zelda's coherence didn't match up with her supposed mental illness. Anyway, I just felt so sad and depressed after reading this book. Maybe this means it was a good book because it had such an effect on me, but I still can't give it more than 3 stars.

(3.5 stars) This is a historical fiction novel about the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, from when they first met, with Zelda at 17, and a somewhat wild Southern belle, and F. Scott, as a Yankee young lieutenant, about to be shipped out for training and then on to the battlefronts of WWI. Her father is completely unimpressed with this dreamer as a suitor for his daughter, but she falls for him, and after the sale of his first novel, jumps on a train to New York to be his bride. Their life together coincides with the Jazz age, and the two flow from one giant party to the next, with the money flowing out at an alarming rate. He begins to resent the impact of the short story work that pays the bills, and to save they move to Paris, beginning a new series of salons and parties. The great divider of their relationship is Ernest Hemingway, who becomes an enemy of Zelda early on. As Zelda begins to try to find her own identity, separate from her roles as wife and mother, their relationship becomes more strained, finally coming to a breaking point for Zelda. The book provides an interesting perspective on Zelda as her own woman.

(3.5 stars)

In 1920, Zelda Sayre, a nineteen-year-old girl from Montgomery, Alabama, hops onto a train to New York City to marry F. Scott Fitzgerald. Within months, the couple is widely known among New York City’s society. The two of them stay up all night to drink and party and sleep until afternoon. This lifestyle leaves marks and so it doesn’t come as a surprise that Scott has problems concentrating on his writing.
The couple move to France where Scott is supposed to finish his novel undisturbed. This is where they meet some of the most influential artists and writers of the 20th century and their marriage starts to get complicated.

Therese Anne Fowler is very good at creating a suitable atmosphere. The depiction of surreal 1920s parties, the arty Paris salons and the increasing bleakness Zelda faces in France help to get a better understanding of the world she lives in and what it must be like for her to deal with it.

Z starts out as a cheerful, exciting novel and steadily drifts into a melancholic, desolate mood, which mirrors Zelda’s physical and mental health. This also affects the novel’s pace which slows down after the couple leave for Paris the first time. Reading Z, it becomes clear that you probably wouldn’t want to swap places with Zelda. In the end, she is nothing more than another wife who isn’t able to do what she wants just because her husband says so – and that is a complete understatement.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Ftizgerald tells the story of Zelda Sayre, a rebellious southern belle who falls in love with army officer and soon to be famous writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It chronicles their life together, the good, the bad and the downright ugly, in much the same way that Paula McLain's The Paris Wife does for Hadley, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. In fact, Hadley makes a couple appearances in Z, as the events of their lives intertwine in more than a few ways.

I purchased this book within weeks of finishing The Paris Wife in 2014. I couldn't wait to compare their stories and look at life in the 1920's. Then I became distracted by other things and a whole year went by with Z sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read. When I finally picked it up I wasn't excited anymore, but I felt that I should read it before I bought more books. The beginning of Z was rather confusing because I expected it to start with Zelda as a child or young woman and instead it began with a letter she was writing to Scott late in their marriage. In addition, I didn't find Zelda very likeable at the beginning. She came across haughty and spoiled with just a touch of naive rebelliousness. I worried that the book would be boring because I disliked her, and then I felt bad about disliking her, and it spiraled from there. I put the book down and didn't pick it up again for 6 months, at which point I finally gave in and decided to finish it, because I hate leaving things undone.

As the story progresses, Zelda matures, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. Being in her mind throughout the story you can feel her growing and - thankfully - becoming for likeable. As Zelda and Scott's marriage deteriorates, Zelda gains unimaginable strength of character and becomes one of my favorite people. She is truly a Renaissance woman. She is a painter, a dancer, and a wonderful writer despite being pushed continually into using Scott's name on her work. She single-handedly saves their family from ruin at the expense of her own sanity, and then she puts her life back together again. Zelda Fitzgerald becomes a true paragon of a strong woman, and I am thankful every day that Therese Ann Fowler chose to share this version of her with the world.

Living through the ups and downs and twists of a marriage that spans wars and depressions, fame and hospitalization, love and hatred, Zelda is the one holding together not just her own life, but Scott's as well. Until the very end, she is his biggest supporter as well as his biggest critic, and he is only the better for it.

Probably the part that intrigued me the most was the summer everyone went to the beach, because this period of time appeared in both Z and in The Paris Wife, but from the different women's points of view. Having read The Paris Wife, in which Zelda and Scott were very minor character and hardly mentioned, it was fascinating to see Ernest and especially Hadley from Zelda's point of view in Z. To Zelda, Hadley is a very important person, and someone she strives to understand and even somewhat emulate because of her strength during Ernest's betrayal. The whole section just made me love these two women even more.

By the time I reached the conclusion of the book, I didn't want it to be over. The beginning had been explained and I understood the point of starting at the end, since in many ways Zelda's life came full circle. I would highly recommend Z to anyone who liked The Paris Wife, and to anyone and everyone who enjoys period pieces. In fact, I would recommend that every woman (or just every person, really) should read this book and The Paris Wife because they are just so educational and inspiring and strengthening that I think everyone could gain something from their pages.

Curio Street Reads Rating: 5 Stars
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"Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald" by Therese Anne Fowler is the fictionalized biography of Mrs. Fitzgerald. Though Fowler sticks with the truth for the most part, where the holes in the story lie, she fills them and where the views differ, she picks one. I have read two other books where Zelda was a major player and she varies from book to book. In one she was openly a bitch, in another she was out of her mind, and in this one she is a rather pleasant party girl. So the only people who would know the real Zelda would be the ones who were there. In this novel, Zelda loves a good time and F. Scott Fitzgerald is the perfect partner. The two took the literary world and party scene by storm. However, as time goes on and the partying doesn't stop, the literary world takes notice. The end result becomes sad. The label 'artist' becomes just as excuse for an unemployed alcoholic. This book is the brilliant look at the rise and fall of a literary giant. When Zelda becomes mentally ill, rather than actually treat her, the men around her, doctors and husband, instead use her illness against her to their benefit, be it financially or for authoritive control. The poor woman didn't have a chance. Though sad, this is a well written book and reading about Zelda's wilder days is greatly entertaining. BTW, the store is making a series based this book, if you are interested. I received this book in exchange for an honest review from [...]

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - Therese Anne Fowler 5/5 stars

Anyone who knows even the least little thing about me knows I am a huge F. Scott Fitzgerald fan. The Great Gatsby ranks as one of my favorite novels and I'm beyond excited for the movie to come out next month. I'm adding Zelda Fitzgerald to my list of people I'd invite to dinner.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is Scott and Zelda's life from her perspective. It wasn't all glitz and glamour, although the pair had their fair share of excitement and drama. I don't want to delve too deeply since I don't want to give anything way. Suffice to say parts of the story read like Liz Smith's column in the New York Times. It's a who's who of the literary and art scene, both in New York City and Paris, a place where the Fitzgerald family spent much of their time.

Although this book is slow to start, by the time Scott and Zelda get married, you are swept away by the story. Fowler closely examines Fitzgerald's relationship with Ernest Hemingway, often having Zelda refer to the pair as fairies for being such good friends. Obviously, even in Paris, things like that were pretty taboo in the 1920s and 1930s.

As a writer, I understand how important authenticity is to historical fiction and this book does a good job of sticking to the facts. The 1920s are my favorite time period in history, but there's still so much I don't know. This book helped fill in a few more details about it for me.

We also get a good biography of a young Zelda, before she meets Scott. One flaw of the book was that her family seemed to vanish into thin air after she moved to New York. I wish the author had better kept up with her family, either through letters or through a second narrator reporting from Alabama.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Scott or Zelda, The Great Gatsby, or the 1920s in general.

There are so many ways to be a writer, but I felt I understood writers in general, inasmuch as I think writers can be understood. We all have something to say, and we require the written word - as opposed to musical instruments, or paint and canvas, or clay, or marble, or what have you - to say it. Not all writers want to be profound (though an awful lot of them do); some want to entertain, some want to inform; some are trying to provoke the most basic, universal feelings using a minimum of words - I think of Emily Dickinson - to demonstrate how it is to be human in our crazy world.

As a writer, I am able to relate to this quote so well. I wish her writings were more readily available and that she had been able to achieve more success and happiness, rather than shuttling from mental institution to mental institution.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book directly from the publisher. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated in any way.

Reminiscent of The Paris Wife, this beautifully written biographical fiction about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is exquisitely done. Fowler captured the spirit, wit, and essence of Zelda, her marriage and relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald, the affects of his alcoholism on their marriage, her struggle for independence paving the way for her to become a feminist, her loneliness early in their marriage when Scott was writing The Great Gatsby and she takes a French lover, her desire to be recognized for her talent in drawing, painting, writing and ballet dancing during a time when women were to be demure and devoted only to their spouse and children, and her struggles with colitis and being bipolar.

Zelda was an outspoken, strong minded, and privileged southern girl from Montogmery, Alabama used to high society life and she easily fit into the artistic echelon with and without Scott. She had some of her works and reviews bought and published. Late in life her paintings and drawings were recognized in galleries in New York. Her life ended tragically in a hospital fire where she was recuperating in 1948.

Fowler takes the reader through time as Scott struggles over writing, initial rejection by publishers, and ultimately achieves fame and recognition through This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. She depicts the glamorous life they led in St. Paul, New York, France and Italy making friends with Ernest and Hadley Hemingway (and the struggles in their marriage), Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, and Henri Matisse. Fowler explores the friendship and competition between Scott and Ernest and suspicions they were homosexuals.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and its eloquent depiction of the Fitzgeralds and the Jazz Age.

"I don't want to live, I want to love first and live incidentally."
(Zelda Fitzgerald)

If ever two people shouldn't have met, it's F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre. Charming but immature and undisciplined, Zelda was used to being taken care of, pampered. As Scott's wife, she tuned out discussion of any serious subject -like Scott's perilous finances or the talk of a new poet-playwright on Broadway named Eugene O'Neill. Unless it concerned her directly, she ignored what went on outside her own life.

That's not to say she was to blame for Fitzgerald's failure to recognize his own genius. Scott destroyed himself. He didn't need any help. But Zelda was the wrong person and they married in the wrong age -when wives were supposed to want nothing more than to be ornaments for their men- and whether she acquiesced in it or not, their lifestyle was utterly destructive. To start with, they drank so much! And whether they had money or not, they spent it. And Scott was narcissistic and so insecure and he thought that the first thing he needed to do to become THE great American writer was to publicize him.

Then there was Hemingway. Hemingway fascinated the more established Fitzgerald. It flattered Scott to promote Hemingway to his own publisher, Scribner's. When Hemingway's' first book (his second published) came out from Scribner's, Scott expected gratitude, but what he got was what many people both before and after got from Hemingway -resentment deepening into disdain and then outright rejection. Papa had no interest in someone who could no longer help him advance himself. Fowler's interpretation of the deep antipathy between Zelda and Ernest isn't something you will find explained in the writings of either of them but Fowler's recreation of it marches well with what is known of Hemingway in general and explains why Zelda loathed him so much. He earns it in this book.
Fowler has written an affecting, powerful account of the sad life of a woman who had talent -no one knows quite how much but she was no lightweight--but whose life was out of joint from early on in one of the least fortunate marriages on record. It's difficult to read a chapter without wanting to continue on to the next chapter right away, and then the next and the next.

All through it, you anticipate the train wreck to follow, not just because you know it was a wreck because everybody's heard about Scott and Zelda but because in this book, narrated by Zelda, Zelda knows it too but she can't find a way to change it. As long as Scott is in the picture, the prose crackles and you are confronted with one vivid scene after another. But Scott died before Zelda and by then, anyway, she was in an asylum more than out of one, and he was in Hollywood, drinking and whoring his life away. The final pages of the book, after Scott has died, and leading up to Zelda's own early, tragic death, are muted. It's as though the real and only story of Zelda's life was her tempestuous and mutually destructive life with Scott, and when Scott as gone, Zelda was ready to go too.

"Death is the only real elegance," Zelda wrote in her novel, Save Me the Waltz. That's funny. Because it wasn't for Zelda.

I hardly know where to begin. I guess I should say that I admire F. Scott and maybe that's why this book failed so miserably for me. Why do people want to portray him as Zelda's pathetic alcoholic husband? They were both in it, the lifestyle that brought him down, as far as I can tell. Where did anyone ever get that Zelda had a soccer-mom personality that also somehow belied her incredible genius as an artist who F. Scott was so jealous of that he cruelly repressed her in the midst of his alcoholic wallowing?

I must point out that this book fails even if you prefer to romanticize the infamous Zelda over her husband. Maybe even especially then. Supposedly, the author of Z wanted to give Zelda a voice. Well, the voice she gave her doesn't get anywhere near the wild, brazen and ruinously sexy Zelda (who later became mentally ill.) It astounds me that while the author tells us that Zelda is all these things - because she can't get around it, that's why the book is being written in the first place - she nonetheless insists on narrating Zelda's story using the voice of a prudent school-marm who teases and torments F. Scott in the beginning of their relationship for his own good! Because she sees he might be a genius and she must let him go...to adhere to his genius endeavors without being hung up in a marriage where he would be worrying about making sure he can afford to hire a maid -

Of course, when his success seems assured, Zelda then decides that after making the ultimate sacrifice of stringing Scott along, he is her soul mate after all! And the book goes on like this with Zelda portrayed as being dragged to these wild parties against her will, then looking on as her famous husband makes a fool of himself. The instances where, again, the author cannot get away from true accounts of Zelda's own behavior, like diving into a fountain and jumping off a terrace in France, are all blamed on Scott! Yes, the author takes these tidbits and tells us that Zelda behaved this way because she happened to see F. Scott flirting or kissing other women...

And then, there is the scene with Hemingway...Oh, God. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who wants to read the book, so I won't say what the author envisions here. But - Really? It's not enough to humiliate a great writer like F. Scott Fitzgerald but the author is going to try to rub Hemingway's face in the dirt too?

When I started to write this review I was going to give the book three stars because of the literary quality of the prose. But really, the quality of the prose is all wrong to portray Zelda. It is quiet and dutiful and linear. Two stars. And have two aspirins ready, if you still want to read Z -

One word: Co-dependent. Yes, as much as Zelda and Scott are crazy in love, they are even more crazy with out one another. They need each other, thrive off one another, and seem to feed off one another the more "crazy" one is. The story starts with Zelda as a teenager, a vibrant 17 year old, who has many suitors at her feet. However, she zones in one handsome solider: F. Scott Fitzgerald, who also only has eyes for her. It's rather sweet to read about their courtship, leading up to marriage, and readers can't help but root for them.

While we all know the ending, it's what happens in between that makes the story worthwhile. Theresa Ann Fowler, is a great storyteller, who gives readers a glimpse into the world of the Fitzgerald's. Zelda is given a voice, that goes beyond just being "crazy, neurotic, unstable". She is clear headed, strong willed, and sets trends despite her desire to do so. She is simply herself, and that is what makes us all fall in love with her.

Zelda, never meant to be in Scott's shadow, follows her own dreams of writing, dancing, and making being who she wants to be, all while being with an erratic husband, dealing with the media and what they chose to portray her as, and trying to be the kind of mother she desires, all while also having a mental illness (that wasn't diagnosed until later in her life).

This is an excellent book that follows Zelda from her courtship through the Jazz age. It ends with you wanting more Zelda! It's an excellent book, that is a must-read for anyone who loves historical fiction, wants to know who the woman is behind F. Scott Fitzgerald, and just loves a great love story (with a little bit of crazy).

I decided to read Z: A NOVEL OF ZELDA FITZGERALD by Therese Anne Fowler (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2013) after viewing Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" (not once, but three times!), visiting the grave of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in Rockville, Maryland, and viewing once again the 1974 version of "The Great Gatsby." There is just something about the interwar era and its ambience which draws me to anything associated with that period. Whatever the case, I could not resist reading Z.

The novel is written almost as an autobiography. In fact, I had to keep reminding myself that it was, in fact, a work of fiction. Ms. Fowler has Zelda relating the story of her life from 1918, when she first met Lieutenant Scott Fitzgerald, until Scott's death in 1940. The reader is able to see and experience the "Jazz Age" through the eyes and emotions of Zelda.

As I journeyed through the two decades of Zelda and Scott's turbulent life together, I kept wondering how much of Zelda's struggle to establish her own identity, apart from always being known as "F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife," was true. I felt sorrow for Zelda as she tried repeatedly to love Scott despite his obvious obsessive jealousy. Scott himself struggled with his own doubts about his talent as writer and his fear of slipping into the shadows behind a wife whose potential success as a writer threatened his own self-image.

I felt sorrow for Zelda as she fought a mental illness that neither she nor the doctors of that time were able to understand. Today, she would likely have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a treatable illness. Unfortunately for Zelda the best knowledge about mental illness of that time was very limited. Much of the treatment she apparently received was not what some someone suffering from bipolar disorder would receive today.

Although Ms. Fowler wants the reader to remember that Z: A NOVEL OF ZELDA FITZGERALD is a work of fiction, she does inform us of the extensive research she undertook in order to write the novel.

There is one quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway, whether in fact so or a creative invention of Ms. Fowler's, that I feel sums up the ambience of that period for which Scott coined the descriptive term, "the Jazz Age." "Nature tests you, and if it finds you worthy, it lets you live another day." In reality, all the glitz and glamor associated with the Jazz Age was only an illusion that hid the pain felt by a generation wounded by the Great War and all that followed from it. Perhaps the Jazz Age was a distraction, an attempt to ignore psychological pain.

I seldom read novels, but when I do, I want one that is more than just a story, a brief diversion from everyday boredom. Therese Anne Fowler's Z: A NOVEL OF ZELDA FITZGERALD fit the bill, and so I award it five stars.

I have to admit that Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Fowler is not normally the type of book I read. However, since reading the Great Gatsby in the 10th grade I have been a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Over the years, I have read a number of biographies of him and in the process became very enamored with Zelda. Finding Z at a time when I have the time to read it is amazing.

Ms Fowler needs to be congratulated on the wonderful job she's done in researching Zelda. Granted, while Z is a fictional account of Zelda's life, much that is included is factual or certainly plausible.

That Zelda is a bit flawed is evident from the very first. Perhaps flawed isn't the correct word. Zelda is worldly at a time when young women weren't supposed to be so. She matched Scott very well, and there in lies the problem. Fowler again and again demonstrates how the couple lives off each other's foibles and in some cases magnify them. It is Scott who seems to need constant approval, or at least that's what it seems when in reality he seems to acutely feel the need to support his family. It is writing, whether for the slicks or with novels that he does so.

It is also the flawed Zelda that is so endearing. Knowing how the story actually ends makes reading the novel a very poignant experience. For any one who knows the story, it is this feeling of impending disaster that colors the reading experience. The reader can see that the course they're on will eventually lead to the foreordained conclusion.

We are told that the author did a tremendous amount of research including looking at diary entries and letters written both by Scott and Zelda. This excellent research also allowed her to fill in gaps not covered in the research and serves as a benchmark for other authors.

This is my first novel by Therese Fowler and I have to admit it won't be my last. Looking at her previous works, I have a great backlist to choose from.

I highly recommend Z.

Peace to all.

If there is one book to experience as an audio book then I suggest it is this one! Jenna Lamia, the narrator, did a fantastic job and I loved her southern accent as she brought Zelda Fitzgerald to life. It really enhanced the story and now I am wild for the time period. I plan on delving right into the tv show right here on the store this weekend.

I'm disappointed to hear that the store ordered a second season for the show, then rescinded that decision a few months later. What the hell the store? If you are afraid you can't afford the production of a second season then you are sadly mistaken!

I don't normally give 5 stars on anything, so 4 is my typical grade for high praise.

Great book. Simply captivating. It painted Zelda in a singular light, much less objectification and arm's-length analysis than with which we've grown accustomed to giving to the spouses of famous luminaries.

Zelda was gifted in her own right and I remain grateful for the demystification of her and the humanization of Scott, who was a cad, a frightfully insecure and envious man. I suspect that not only was she likely afflicted with bipolar disorder, but that also he likely suffered from a major personality disorder. Isn't that the way with these creative types? (It makes me sad in a way, that only the really great and gifted artists must harbor some form of mental illness.) He / they would fit right in on a reality tv show nowadays.

The pacing is complete as the book just hums right along. It's the first book in a long time that I've read when I had to put it down because it was too late to stay up.

I became a staunch defender of Ms. Z. I wanted her to leave Scott. I cheered when she achieved critical acclaim at the things she loved to do. And I was deeply nostalgic when I read the final pages; I almost avoided them, pretended they weren't thinning. I had made a friend. I felt them, the Fitzgeralds, as thick as smoke, beside me in those last moments. I didn't want it to end. I didn't want things to play out the way they did.

It was a wonderful experience.

I give this book 3.5 stars. 52% percent of the reviewers are 5 stars. I think it is put together very well and highly readable. I am engaged. Zelda is likable but not dimensional enough for me. Lots of sights and sounds and understandably so as this book moves around quite a bit. I am not sold on the voice of Zelda, it sounds like the authors voice. It does not convince me that she would think like this. This is a very good effort and I am thrilled for Therese Ann Fowler for her depth of research, accomplishment and success with this book. It is loved.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is written in the first person, as if by Zelda herself. It commences in 1918 in Montgomery, Alabama, when Zelda Sayre is 18 years old and the house “was wrapped in the tiny white blooms of Confederate jasmine.” She couldn’t have looked lovelier, like Botticelli’s Venus. Then “Oh, my” – Zelda saw Francis Scott Fitzgerald for the first time, when he was not yet a great author, but an army officer. She noticed his “softly squared chin, the perfect almond shape of his eyes … his eyes were clear, yet mysterious, and his lips curved just slightly upward.” When she learned that he wrote, she thought of him, “He’s all words, no substance.” Scott (as he called himself) “was giving too much credit to the idea that if he secured a new job, he’d be able to put the rest of his plan into action. New job, new wife, time for writing, cash for the theatre and parties, great book, literary fame … it was an impossible plan.”

In the same year, Scribners publishing house accepted F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise – the book that started it all. At 23 years of age, he was Scribner’s youngest author. In April 1920 Zelda and Scott married and 18 months later their daughter, Frances “Scottie” was born. Zelda and Scott were The Golden Couple. She was the original party girl and 1920s flapper (dancer) and he was a budding author. During her pregnancy she too had time to write – she wrote a 2,000 word review which was published in a magazine. She was excited about it, but Scott merely said how nice it was that she’d found a hobby.

In 1922, Scott’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was published – “a strange and whimsical story” – for which he earned a thousand dollars. But a writer’s royalties fluctuated – and mostly the Fitzgeralds were broke.

By 1924 they moved to Paris and into the company of serious writers: Dorothy Parker, Sherwood Anderson, Anita Loos, Carl van Vechten, Ring Lardner, John Don Passos, Jean Cocteuau, Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. “We became acquainted with Hemingway the writer before we met Hemingway the man.” Scott was obsessed with Hemingway – his prose had force, Scott told Zelda. But by 1925, Scott was on the same pedestal as Hemingway. The Great Gatsby was published. “Gatsby was short – around fifty thousand words – but in that brevity was a lot of nuance.” His publisher cabled, “Sale situation doubtful. Excellent reviews.”

From the outskirts of Paris they moved to the Right Bank and partied on the Left Bank – and by now Gatsby had made its debut on Broadway. Hemingway was writing Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises – “its sales were respectable but not astonishing, and its reviews generally good but not an avalanche of praise.”

Zelda continued to dance and dance. In September 1929 she was accepted into the San Carlo Ballet Company in Naples as a premier dancer and soloist. It was the highlight of her career, but Scott was not happy. “Our life is in France,” he said, and she declined the offer.

Suffering bouts of bipolar disorder, and checking herself into a sanitarium, she wrote her first novel, Save Me the Waltz, which was published in 1932 by Scott’s publisher, Maxwell Perkins, who cabled, “there was much to appreciate, some truly beautiful descriptions and terms of phrase.” But it only sold a thousand or so copies. Leaving Scott, Zelda had little to do with him in the three years before his death in 1940 from heart attack – with a mountain of debts. She didn’t go to the funeral: “There’s no need for me to be present; I’m not saying good-bye.”

After his death, she re-released his novel The Last Tycoon which led to a resurgence of his works. By 1945 The Great Gatsby sold 20 million copies. Again checking herself into a psychiatric hospital in 1948, Zelda died when a fire filled the building with flames and smoke.

Interestingly told, Fowler’s novel focuses on the woman who wanted to please her husband by being as capable as she was beautiful. As she wrote in a letter to Scott, “Excuse me for being so intellectual. I know you would prefer something nice and feminine and affectionate” – and added “I love you, even if there isn’t any me, or any love, or even any life. I love you.”

I know so very little about Zelda Fitzgerald -- or, for that matter, her husband. I've read The Great Gatsby and some of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories, but no more than that, and I'm aware of the general assumption that Zelda was crazy. And perhaps she was, and perhaps this book is biased -- way biased -- in her favor. But it's plausible and so very well written and in no way the melodramatic chick lit piece that I feared it would be. Yes, there are some aspects of the book that are a bit more proto-feminist than might be appropriate or accurate, but it tells the story so very well; the characters are characters rather than caricatures; and it makes it almost plausible that these two very sick and sad people clung to each other as if they were tied back-to-back to a corpse. Which in a way is precisely what they were. A lovely sad book that I'm glad I read.

In a time when women were defined by their marriage, Zelda struggles to find a voice of her own, apart from that of her husband, the legendary F. Scott Fitzgerald.

After falling madly in love with a promising young writer, Zelda has nothing but a growing sensation of hope and expectation for their future, which is soon consumed by wild parties and a lavish lifestyle traveling abroad, celebrating her husband's successes, and seeking the ever-elusive peaceful and inspiring locations for him to write. The Fitzgeralds travel the world, meeting many famous figures from history including Ernest Hemmingway -who soon becomes Scott's newest and closest friend- as well as Picasso, Cole Porter, and Winston Churchill, enjoying the glamorous decadence of the 20s. But this lavish lifestyle takes it's toll on F. Scott, who relies more and more on alcohol to get him through his writing, and Zelda doesn't like the changes that she sees in him. And as she worries what to expect next from her husband, who seems to be falling apart at the very seams, she begins to lose pieces of her own self, suffering from episodes of anxiety and other challenges.

As she struggles with her husbands alcoholism and her own mental breaks, she tries to reaffirm her own identity as a dancer, artist, and writer, yet seems always to remain under the shadow of her husband. Determined to try harder, she throws herself into ballet, pushing her body beyond its limits and wasting away under the effects of an eating disorder, which ultimately leads to a complete mental and emotional breakdown

Even though a lot of the issues in Zelda's life were a part of the times around her, they still hold their meaning today as things I think we all still deal with to some degree or another. The struggle of identity, of being one's own person, of finding love, and keeping that love, and overcoming the naysayer to achieve the dreams and passions in our own hearts. And so I think this is a book that almost anybody could relate to, regardless of how you feel about the characters involved.

It's a little hard for me to admit, but I've never been much of a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I do, however, enjoy reading Hemingway, and found it a bit unsettling to learn about the darker aspects of his character in the story, but despite it all I absolutely enjoyed reading this book.

Fowler does a wonderful job in bringing the passions, dreams, and struggles of Zelda Fitzgerald's life together into a beautiful novel that grips the reader until the very last page. And what a wonderful, glamorous, tumultuous, and tragic life it was!

As Therese Anne Fowler points out in her acknowledgements, views on the relationship between F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife and muse, Zelda, tend to split into "Team Scott" and "Team Zelda". The former believe that it was Zelda's instability and possessiveness that limited Scott's creative output while the latter argue that it was Scott's debauched behaviour that led to Zelda's mental problems. "Z" takes a more balanced view - the truth of the matter is that they needed each other but were tragically, mutually destructive. Getting the fact-based fiction tone right is always a challenge, and this is exacerbated when the author gives a writer the narrative voice, and Zelda was a talented writer in her own right as well as a dancer, artist and general social phenomenon. However Fowler pulls it off with aplomb in what is a sensitive and engrossing story of Zelda - "the First Flapper".

Split into five parts that cover respectively Zelda's early years in Montgomery, Alabama where Scott was stationed as an army officer; good times as Scott's literary career took off leading to "The Great Gatsby"; Europe and the meeting with Ernest Hemingway; the fall out of Hemingway on Scott and Zelda; and finally the later years. Scott, and Zelda's relationship with Hemingway is one of the areas that is open to historical question but Fowler deals with this in a wholly believable way. Whatever happened, along with alcohol, Hemingway was bad for Scott and particularly his relationship with his wife.

Part of Scott's problem, along with alcohol, was that he seemed to want to be what he saw, but wasn't. He knew people like his great fictional creation, Gatsby, but he wasn't of that moneyed set. That didn't stop him behaving as if he was though. Then when Hemingway entered the scene, he wanted to be the great macho man, and one might say bully, that Hemingway was. Either way his relationship with Hemingway turned from support of a fledgling writer to jealousy of his success. Ultimately though it was Scott's indiscipline that was probably the main barrier to his creative output. While Hemingway had the discipline to lock himself away to write his novels between bouts of boxing, drinking and bull fighting, Scott struggled to leave the good life alone and so often only managed short stories and movie workings as that was all he could stomach the periods of sobriety that were required.

While Zelda and Scott were the darlings of the 1920s social scene, both in New York and Europe, when Zelda became ill, she was forced to abandon the alcohol infused life and Scott both lost a drinking partner and his drunken exploits were seen from the now sober eyes of his wife. And yet, their love for each other comes through in Fowler's book using Zelda's imagined voice. In the end, they couldn't live with or without each other. Fowler presents a sympathetic view though, acknowledging fault on both sides (probably more on Scott's to be fair) but at the same time recognizing what they were to each other. You get the sense that in their prime, both would have made for terrific company.

This is one of those books where your heart breaks when you re-read the Prologue on finishing the book. I have to say that I'm a huge fan of F Scott Fitzgerald's books, particularly "The Great Gatsby" and "Tender is the Night" but even putting that aside, this is an engrossing read of celebrity life. In some ways the story is specific to the between the war years and that fascinating creative group of writers and artists. In particular the opportunities for women beyond the role of homemaker drew Zelda and frustrated Scott. In other ways, perhaps things haven't changed that much as bright starts shine and burn out. Amy Winehouse anyone?

Our library fiction book group read this book and most seemed to enjoy the story. Some reviews indicated that the author embellished or changed some of the facts and dates. Of course, you hope that most of the information in historical fiction sticks closely to the real facts. One participant wished some of Zelda's actual letters were included. My Southern grandmother was born two months to the day before Zelda Fitzgerald and enjoyed reading about Zelda's tragic life. Zelda and Scott had so many opportunities with travel and meeting artists, writers and poets. Imagine their lives without the over-consumption of alcohol. I was thinking of Julia Child's autobiography when she went to France with her husband Paul and what a great time they had developing a cooking school, taking classes at the Cordon Bleu and coming back to the states to write a cookbook. Imagine if Zelda and Scott had been able to live sanely and keep producing their art. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and the group was glad to have read it. 4.5 stars

The "Roaring 20's" is seriously one of my favorite topics to read about. I did my senior thesis on this time period for my degree in History. The marriage of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda has always fascinated me. This book attempts to give us an insight into one of the most misunderstood women of the era. Zelda, while a very talented woman in her right, lived under the shadow of her famous husband.

The author begins the story in Zelda's hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda, just 18, is a southern bell with a fiery streak. She meets Scott while he is stationed nearby, waiting to ship out and fight in W.W.I. Written in Zelda's voice, we follow this volatile couple through their courtship, wedding, and the ensuing years. Though they are viewed as the golden couple of the Jazz Age, trouble becomes apparent. Their drinking is excessive and spending lavish. Scott lashes out at Zelda, then pulls her closer. Eventually, their relationship begins to deteriorate, but they cannot live without each other.

Ever since reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, I have been fascinated with the character of Zelda Fitzgerald. She came across in some history as the original flapper, Scott's muse and his downfall. Hemingway clearly despised her, despite being the consummate ladies man himself. Fowler's novel attempt to give a voice to Zelda, to show that she was not who she had been made out to be. Her portrayal of this talented, misunderstood woman, was well written and engaging. The author clearly did an amazing amount of research into the times and lives of the "Lost Generation". I would definitely recommend this book.

"SO WE BEAT ON,
BOATS AGAINST THE CURRENT,
BORNE BACK CEASELESSLY INTO THE PAST"

-last line of The Great Gatsby, inscribed on the Fitzgeralds' headstone

Having read some of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books and listening to my mother and her sisters talk about the "jazz age," images and words predisposed me to a strong desire to read about Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda. Growing up in the deep South, certain actions were expected by a young woman. Zelda was having none of this before she met Scott and had even less of it after meeting him.

Zelda was full of fun, somewhat brazen, unconventional, and felt little fear at the prospect of defying the norm in Montgomery, Alabama. I read Zelda's story and wish in 1965, at Zelda's age, I possessed the courage to be different, to step outside the box, to follow my dreams. No matter how reckless they seemed to others.

And this is what Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald did. At times, their marriage seemed vitriolic. Yet the two could not seem to survive alone. Dependent, co-dependent, they mirrored the marriages and lives of many creative geniuses -- Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Dashielle Hammett and others.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip through the lives of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Although they moved about the country and world, every scene instills a bit of Zelda's Southern heritage -- languorous movements, hints of mint julep in the air, the softening of words -- and her determination to be her own woman retaining that Southern heritage while fighting against it.

Fowler has done her research well, especially into the years abroad and the persons met and socialized with during those years. She also is specific in her descriptions of Zelda's dark times with respect to treatments in mode during the 1920-30s.

Definitely, we'll never know who brought down whom, but I can assure you when you turn the last page of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, you will be begging for more.

* * *

My Recommendation:

Lovers of historical novels will find Theresa Anne Fowler's work on the Fitzgeralds' story one worth reading. But don't start it if you have some work to do, because your work will quickly be forgotten. This is a page-turner replete with images of glitzy, fringed flappers, gin mills, and drugstore cowboys.

"Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald" is another contribution to the trend in fiction of using historical personalities as the main characters. Our book club has read several of these books, and while I've enjoyed them, it's very important to remember that these are not non-fiction books. Not every scene happened in real life, and as we have no way to know what is fictional and what is not it's important to treat it all as fiction.

Regarding Z in particular, I enjoyed the tale of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. The book is well-paced and keeps the reader's attention throughout. My only complaint, which unfortunately dogged the entire book, was Fowler's insistence on portraying Zelda's Alabama accent by dropping the gees of her words. Rather than conveying the idea of an accent, instead it conveyed the image that Zelda didn't speak well or wasn't very bright. Throughout the book Zelda was lovin' Scott, hatin' Scott, drinkin', dancin', and partyin' into the early mornin' hours. It was irritating, and even more irritating, inconsistent. Her accent could have been mentioned in other ways to keep the reader remembering that she had it. For example, a character could say, "Why, Mrs. Fitzgerald, you have such a charming southern accent!" There were multiple references to Alabama, and she and Scott met there, so clearly she'd have had some accent. I don't know if it was all that important anyway.

If you like "Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald," check out "The Paris Wife," by Paula McLain. Many scenes from that book are duplicated here, so it's interesting to see situations portrayed from another point of view. I highly recommend "The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb" and "The Aviator's Wife," by Melanie Benjamin. Benjamin does this non-fiction-as-fiction writing better than anyone.

Zelda Fitzgerald is someone for whom I never spared a thought. Everyone knows she was selfish, jealous, shallow and more than a little crazy, right? Wrong! Therese Anne Fowler portrays Zelda as a smart, supportive wife with plenty of aspirations of her own. She was artistic and interested in women's rights (or lack thereof) and overcame some challenging personal struggles and health issues. She even wrote many of her own essays and books, some of which bore her husband's name! I felt page rage (similar to road rage) on Zelda's behalf when I read about the credit she deserved but never received.

I recently read The Paris Wife, which explores Hemingway's first marriage from his first wife's perspective; this is a nice follow-up book, as the timeline overlaps The Paris Wife, and then goes beyond it.

Zelda Fitzgerald was born before her time; if she were alive today, she'd be influencing our daughters.

I found Z: A Novel compelling to read. I am ashamed to admit I did not know much about Scott F. Fitzgerald, let alone his wife, Zelda, so I found this book interesting on many levels. Of particular interest to me were the personal struggles and challenges both Zelda and Scott experienced individually and how these impacted their marriage as well as the history and their life of grandeur.

There are many of these types of novels out there now. ‘The Paris Wife and ‘The Aviator’s Wife’ come immediately to mind, and I think they provide an interesting viewpoint on the these infamous men, as well as their wives, giving us a glimpse of their lives behind closed doors – from the wife’s perspective. I haven’t read either of the above (okay, I got a quarter of the way through The Aviator’s Wife before my netgalley copy archived, but I enjoyed it until then), but I may seek them out as I find this type of read more than entertaining, I find it educational.
A writers lifestyle in the roaring twenties (an era I love) was eye opening. That they lived like celebrities do today fascinated me. I thought this was written so well, I felt I was right alongside the Fitzgeralds as they drank and danced and were merry. It was delightful to see the excitement of their new relationship juxtaposed alongside this exuberant time, making it all seem even more grand.

I was really surprised at the depiction of both Scott F. Fitzgerald and his ‘friend,’ Hemingway. I had no idea they could each be so nasty, both to the women in their lives, and each other. But, I didn’t know much about them other than a few of their novels in the first place so I don't kno wwhy I was so surprised.
Zelda’s and Scott’s relationship could probably mirror many tumultuous relationships today. The two seemed to fuel each other’s fire and encouraged and discouraged in all the wrong places. One wonders whether they would have ended up where they did if they had married other people.

Zelda’s struggles, including living with her husband’s alcoholism, their depleting bank account, and what would now be called bi-polar disorder, are portrayed well. Also poignant is her struggle to maintain her own identity. She wrote her own pieces of fiction, but found it difficult to be taken seriously in Fitzgerald’s shadow and as a wife and mother. I think Zelda’s struggle for self is one that women can still identify with and relate to, regardless of the famous writer husband and lavish lifestyle.

I think what I liked most about this type of novel is that it bursts open other viewpoints. After I finished this book, I did some google research and discovered that Zelda was considered a crazy alcoholic, and portrayed with ruining her husband’s career. One reads Z: A Novel and realizes that maybe there is a different perspective to the story. Maybe it was the other way around. It makes you realize that if one takes all perspectives into account, you may come to some sort of truth, or at least the potential that one viewpoint does not tell the entire story.

All in all, I think fans of the era, and Fitzgerald will enjoy Z: a novel, as will anyone looking for a different perspective, or someone, like myself, who was barely informed in the first place.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for our review copy. All opinions are our own.

This novel is fast-paced and very readable. It tells a story about Zelda Fitzgerald's teen years and her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald, focusing mostly on the early years of their marriage. Although they had what sounds like a very wild lifestyle, the author tells the story in a very tasteful way, and this book is unlikely to offend readers with delicate sensibilities.

****Spoiler Alert****

Ditto for the way the author deals with the topic of Zelda's mental illness and institutionalization. The topic is dealt with in a very gentle way. Although I appreciated this approach, it made this book feel a little bit like a "beach read" because of the author's restraint. The book was more pleasurable to read because very serious topics were not dwelt upon too heavily, so a very heavy story was not made into the devastating tearjerker that it could have been crafted into.

********************

The story was very well written, though in parts the breezy tone had a slight whiff of women's study term paper. Not a bad thing at all, but if you find feminist theory off putting, be forewarned. This is a novel with a strong feminist perspective.

I would recommend this book to readers of any age, from young adult on.

Reader who enjoy this book may also want to read The Paris Wife, a novel about Hadley Richardson and her time in Paris with her husband Earnest Hemingway. Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan, is another novel along the same lines as this one, and would probably appeal to those readers who enjoy biographical fiction told from the point of view of a woman who is married to a famous man during the early part of the 20th century.

Beautiful Zelda Sayre, a wealthy, fiery and spoiled Southern Belle met her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald, an Army man and budding novelist, shortly after she finished high school. This thoughtfully written book takes us on their life’s journey, through the glitz and glamour that came along with F. Scott’s literary celebrity. They were madly in love, traveled the world and lived in opulence. Interesting literary and artistic acquaintances are introduced along the way, rich and famous trailblazers of the times. The Fitzgerald’s’ story is a tragic one, as alcoholism, restlessness, jealousy and depression take a grim toll on their health and marriage. I sympathized with Zelda who spent many years in the shadow of and being tormented by an overbearing, obsessed and unpleasant man. She was gifted in ballet, art and writing, having written many of the stories that Scott took credit for. I felt her sadness time and time again, as she has to give up her dreams due to Scott’s selfishness.

Scattered throughout the book are letters between Zelda and her friends and family. Letter writing is a lost art and I loved that the author included these.

I love both of the Fitzgeralds, so much that I often refer to F. Scott Fitzgerald as my literary boyfriend and contemplated naming a cat Zelda once upon a time. I even wrote a high school research paper (nerd alert!) on how Scott used their lives as material for Tender is the Night, so this book was one I knew I wanted to read as soon as I heard about it. I suppose this confession is my way of saying that I approached this book with both a blindly devoted fangirliness and an extremely critical eye with high expectations - and this novel did not disappoint! Z is a unique and entertaining fly-on-the-wall view of Zelda's life and time with Scott Fitzgerald.

First of all, note that the sentence above used the word "entertaining" not 100% factually accurate, though I'm sure extensive research undoubtedly went into writing this novel. What Fowler has created is an incredibly entertaining, fictionalized-but-based-in-fact, first-person narrative of Zelda's life from the time she meets (and falls in love with) a not-yet-famous Scott Fitzgerald in her native Alabama to her accidental death at the Highland Hospital in North Carolina - and everywhere in between. And there are a lot of everywheres (and everythings and everyones) in between. And they are so incredibly fun.

I've seen this book described on Goodreads as "Zelda Lite" and I think that describes it perfectly. It covers none of Zelda Sayre's life prior to meeting Scott and, in an afterword, very quickly wraps up the last eight years of her life (the time period between when Scott died and when she died). The bilk of the novel deals with her fun-filled, and then struggle-filled, life with Scott as readers follow them all over the US and Europe and back again. And the heart of the novel is Zelda, who Fowler writes with a believable combination of innocence, experience, ambition, and fragility. Zelda comes across the page as the witty, spunky, creative, intelligent woman I always knew she was and someone who was, in almost all ways, Scott's equal. I liked her before I read this book, but I loved her after finishing it.

That isn't to say that this book doesn't have it's issues. If anachronisms bother you, I'll warn you that this book has a few. I generally don't even notice when things appear in TV shows or books that are from another time period, but I did notice a few in this book (notably Zelda using the term "trainwreck"). But the reason I noticed them is because - in all other ways - Fowler does such a wonderful job making the reader feel like you are IN the past with Zelda. Fowler's sense of place is excellent, which, considering the sheer number of places the Fitzgeralds lived and traveled to, is an accomplishment in itself.

And finally, if you like Scott Fitzgerald now (or Earnest Hemingway for that matter), be prepared to not like him about midway through this book. The sad truth is that he was like most men, who by today's standards, are incredibly chauvinistic, but I didn't enjoy seeing my idealized, wonderful, literary boyfriend ;) in that light (even though I strongly suspect that Fowler wrote him with a restrained hand and that Scott was far worse than she portrays him in the novel). Not that Scott is a villain in this book, because he definitely is not, but Zelda's struggles make you root for her and I love that about this book. I'll say it again, before reading this book I liked her, but after reading it I loved her.

In the afterward to this book, Theresa Anne Fowler says that she tried as much as possible to stick to the established particulars of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the people in their lives. While I've read almost all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's published work, I've never read his biography, so I'm not sure about the validity of this book, and I wonder about some of the things presented here, like the part where F. Scott and Earnest Hemingway have sex. I wonder about a lot of the plot, actually, because in this book F. Scott is clearly the villain, a verbally and sometimes physically abusive drunk prone to fits of jealousy and philandering, and even though she loves him Zelda is his blameless, long-suffering wife. While I'm sure that neither of the Fitzgeralds were saints, this book goes a long way to suggest that one of them was much closer to sainthood than the other. At the same time, though, this is a well-written and engaging book about a woman married to an author, and a couple trying to deal with the demands of creativity, fame, and mental illness. I enjoyed reading it, but by the end was spending more time wondering about the accuracy than I was considering the plot.

Stepping into Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler, means stepping into a different world. This is a world of jazz and cocktails. Of flappers and Modernist Art. I have sipped champagne with Zelda Fitzgerald at The Plaza and discussed literature with Ernest Hemingway (who is a chauvinist pig, by the way) at a cafe in Paris.

"Z" is insightful and intelligent. It speaks to the feminist in me, the writer in me, and to the historian in me. Unfortunately, I can't speak for its historical accuracy because I'm not very familiar with the personal lives of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Luckily this is the kind of book that inspires you to read further, to explore more. I'm sure over time I'll end up researching much of the Fitzgerald's world, thanks to this book.

This is a novel that inspires and feeds a writer's mind. In the time I read this book I also wrote three short stories. All three were sifting through my brain long before I picked this book up, but something about suffering through Scott's struggles with writer's block inspired me to put pen to paper. Or perhaps its the knowledge that as a woman I should be grateful I'm allowed to put pen to paper at all. Either way, this book made me want to be a better writer. And to write more often.

If there is a low point to this book it is in the ending. *Spoiler... sort of...*

I wish this book had ended on more of a Zelda note and less of a Scott note. After hours of learning just how much she struggled in his shadow, ending it with his death (prior to the afterword that is) just feels like one more loss for Zelda.

Then again, it also makes the story ring true to the life of Zelda Fitzgerald.

http://imaginekatrina.blogspot.com/2014/11/z-novel-of-zelda-fitzgerald-book-review.html

"Thus begins the story of beautiful, reckless, seventeen-year-old Zelda Sayre on the day she meets Lieutenant Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald at a country club dance. Fitzgerald isn't rich or settled; no one knows his people; and he wants, of all things, to be a writer in New York. No matter how wildly in love they may be, Zelda's father firmly opposes the match. But when Scott finally sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, Zelda defies her parents to board a train to New York and marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Life is a sudden whirl of glamour and excitement: Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel--and his beautiful, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, trades in her provincial finery for daring dresses, and plunges into the endless party that welcomes the darlings of the literary world to New York, then Paris and the French Riviera. It is the Jazz Age, when everything seems new and possible--except that dazzling success does not always last. Surrounded by a thrilling array of magnificent hosts and mercurial geniuses--including Sara and Gerald Murphy, Gertrude Stein, and the great and terrible Ernest Hemingway--Zelda and Scott find the future both grander and stranger than they could have ever imagined."

This novel was so much better than The Paris Wife, in which the portrayal of Hemingway and Hadley seemed kind of untrue and made me uneasy. The writing was much more compelling and absorbing, and it seemed to me that the two Fitzgeralds were portrayed really, really well. I was certainly drawn into the book and was entertained while learning a lot about Zelda's life.

In films like Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, Zelda is usually portrayed as someone who hurts Fitzgerald's writing ambitions and is reckless. She is reckless, but in Z there is a more sympathetic, comprehensive, and probably true-to-life portrait of who she is. Hemingway hated her, but I really liked reading about her. She just has some mental problems. As Allison at The Book Wheel puts it, "In reality, scholars debate whether Zelda's medical condition and desire for independence ruined Fitzgerald or that Fitzgerald's alcoholism and relationship with Ernest Hemingway ruined Zelda." Read her full review here. Z gives time to both opinions of the matter, although I do think that the author is understandably more sympathetic to Zelda, her subject.

Even though a fair amount of disturbing things happen in the book, it was kind of a peaceful read. I didn't feel any need to rush through it because it was suspenseful; I just enjoyed the excellent writing and read about the Fitzgeralds' tumultuous lives. They certainly make a lot of bad choices. The book is also kind of dreamy, just like the set that the Fitzgeralds fall in with, dreamy because they're intoxicated a lot of the time.

That said, this was a comparatively light book to be talking about Zelda's life, which was very dark. I enjoyed the fact that it wasn't too heavy, but it probably would have been even more realistic if it was way more serious. The book also doesn't talk much about Zelda's life before the age of seventeen, when she meets Scott, and after his death. It's really only about her relationship with him.

I think all of the characters were portrayed in a realistic manner, and they weren't cardboard characters. Another reader might have sympathy for Hemingway and Fitzgerald instead of Zelda. The historical element was also really well done; as one reviewer puts it perfectly, "Fowler takes us back in time and lets us hang out with these people and see the challenges and temptations they faced as products of their era. The author has a real flair for dialogue, and a wonderful ability to create a sense of time and place using just the right amount of period detail. If you love historical fiction that never gets boring, you're going to love this novel." That's about right. I really loved the dialogue, and all of the settings seemed just right, especially the South at the very beginning. There's just enough detail that the world comes to life. Really, Scott and Zelda's life was like one of his novels - two characters, both beautiful and damned.

I just loved this novel, more than I was expecting to. I thought it would be at best a 4 star read; it was a 5. Z was rich in detail and full of lush descriptions. It was understated and elegant, and a book that I would highly recommend. Perhaps it doesn't do complete justice to Zelda's flamboyant lifestyle, as The New York Times Book Review suggests. But it certainly comes close. Thanks to St. Martin's for providing me with a review copy of this book.

My blog is at novareviews.blogspot.com.

Review based on ARC.

I was so excited when I won this book. And then I was even more excited when I read the first 10 pages and realized it. was gonna be. awesome.

I was so excited, in fact, that I told anyone who would listen what I was reading, what it was about, and what I thought about it.

Many of my friends said they couldn't wait to read it, and a fair number of those even finished first.
That was the worst part about my experience with this book -- I got SO busy between reading those first 10 pages and reading the last 10 pages that I couldn't just SIT and absorb it all at once.

But that's also one of the things that was so impressive about the book. During my absences, Zelda and Scott's lives would merely pause, waiting for me to return. And upon my return, we picked right back up, as if we had not lost any time.. just as you would with an old friend.

This is an impressive historical fiction piece. Fowler clearly did her research, but so much more impressive is the absolutely believable, perfectly flawed, larger than life and exactly every day life, enraging and endearing characters that Fowler lifted out of the pages of history and put to life, dancing and fighting, drinking and arguing, laughing and crying, right on the pages in front of you.

Not only were the characters fresh and alive and warm and cold and just so tangible, but the writing was insightful as well. Perhaps Fowler got it wrong. Maybe Z was more casebook schizophrenic. Maybe she was straight-up crazy. Maybe Scott was brilliant and Z just brought him down. But it didn't matter. Fowler's story is believable and complete. Maybe it's not 100% accurate -- I don't believe any of us knows. But Fowler's story is one that I can accept, that I can believe. And it certainly felt more likely, more feasible, and more real than other renditions I've heard or read over the years. In the end, Fowler admits that it's a novelization, but as I walked away from the book, I thought that just maybe, Fowler did actually get it 100% right. Just maybe...

The only reason this book isn't a 5 star is that there were a few places that dragged. The story slowed down, and it felt more biographical in a few places than like the telling of a great story. But overall, I highly recommend. I recommend to people interested in history, in biography, in drama, in Gatsby, in crazy, in feminism, in masochism, in love, in tragedy, and in wonder. This book has it all.

(FOUR AND A HALF of five stars --> gave 5 because it's closer to 5 than 4!)
See this and other reviews at Allbookreviewer.blogspot.com