Below are a number of resources for those who want to unearth more about this famous couple and the celebrity circle they traveled in throughout the United States and Western Europe.
Learn more
A range of articles on everything from Zelda’s life and work, to her daughter’s, to the homoeroticism between Scott and Hemingway...
Multi-media tie-ins
For your further reading or viewing pleasure...
- Samples of Zelda’s writings, including her review of Scott’s The Beautiful and the Damned: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1258573.files/The%20Great%20Gatsby%20Supplementary%20Reading/ZeldaSampler.PDF
- H.L. Mencken’s review of The Great Gatsby: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-great-gatsby-f-scott-fitzgerald-hl-mencken-20141010-story.html
- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s interview with The New York Post in 1936: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/sep/18/classics.fscottfitzgerald
- Excerpts from Zelda's letters to Scott: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/07/21/zelda-a-worksheet/
- A new TV series based on Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, called Z: The Beginning of Everything: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4878612/
Discussion questions
Thoughts to ponder...
- Have your read any of Fitzgerald’s works and/or seen any of the films based on them? Did you find any similarities between those and the events depicted in this book?
- Did you know much about the Fitzgeralds before reading this book? Did the book jive or clash with that knowledge?
- Did you like Zelda as a character? As a person? What about Scott?
- Why do you think Zelda’s parents objected so much to her marrying Scott? Because of his choice of profession? Because he wasn’t a Southerner? Because he was taking their daughter away from them geographically? Or were they just more practical?
- Zelda says of her ‘old Aunt Julia’: “She’d been born one of Granddaddy Machen’s slaves and was Mama’s childhood nurse before later coming to raise us Sayre kids; she said Emancipation just meant you had to get even better at looking out for yourself.” Discuss.
- “ ‘But I hated that I was hardly better than a scholarship case. All my school friends with their millionaire fathers, their houses, their trips abroad, their society galas...why couldn’t I have been born one of them? ... I wanted a place at their tables. My writing was supposed to get me there--not the millions, there’s no hope of that, but the prestige. In America,you can invent your way to the top of any field. And when you do--well, you’re in.’ “ -p. 37 ... art imitating life? Scott sounds a lot like Gatsby there, doesn’t he?
- What do you think of Zelda’s ways of ‘manipulating’ Scott early in their courtship to force him to keep writing and write successfully?
- What about Scott’s ways of ‘manipulating’ Zelda, particular in front of the press, to push his image and publicity?
- Do you think that authors today have the same celebrity cache that Scott & Zelda enjoyed?
- Is it fair for Zelda to blame Hemingway for the marital troubles between her and Scott, especially considering the amount of issues they had before ever meeting Hemingway?
- Do you think that a more stable career would have ultimately been the better choice for Scott’s physical and mental well-being?
- Do you think that there was ever enough money that Scott could earn to make him feel secure and at ease with his wealthy friends?
- A point that Scott’s Princeton friends bring up early on is about how alcohol and writers often mix ... what do you think about this observation?
- What do you think of the close friendship between Scott and Hemingway? Are they both using each other and/or each worshipping his own self through the other? Do you think there was any basis for Zelda’s fears of them being in love with each other?
- What did you make of Scott and Zelda’s ability to throw off so many traditional things in favor of modernity, to the point of being shocking and scandalous, but still being judgmental about their homosexual acquaintances?
- Would Zelda have been considered mentally ill if she were a man? Were her behaviors any more outlandish or self-destructive than Scott’s?
First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you. ― F. Scott Fitzgerald
Historic details
Little snippets mentioned that you might want to discover more about...- First Confederate White House (former residence of Zelda’s ancestors): http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/firstwhitehouse.html
- Dort car (driven by Zelda’s suitor Arthur): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dort_(automobile)
- Picture-Play magazine (mentioned by Zelda several times): http://mediahistoryproject.org/fanmagazines/
- Charles Scribner’s (one of Scott’s first publishing houses): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Scribner%27s_Sons
- Plashers Mead by Compton MacKenzie (the book that Scott sends Zelda to read): https://books.google.com/books?id=EKkOg7sPteEC
- Ice-cold dopes (Zelda mentions getting these at the drugstore in Montgomery): https://www.ourstate.com/dope-wagon/
- Ziegfeld’s Follies (Zelda & Scott see on their honeymoon): http://parlorsongs.com/issues/2004-1/thismonth/feature.php
- George White’s Scandals (the show Scott & Zelda get kicked out of): http://gershwin.com/publications/george-whites-scandals-of-1920/
- Diaghilev and the Ballets Russe (inspires Zelda to pursue dancing): http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/exhibitions/2013/diaghilev.html
Old New York
Places Zelda wonders at during her honeymoon period...
- Bethesda Terrace (Central Park): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda_Terrace_and_Fountain#The_terrace
Zelda in dance costume at age 16 Persons of historic interest
Just some of the veritable who’s who name-dropped in the book...- Tallulah Bankhead (Zelda’s friend Tallu): http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/9220%7C144384/Tallulah-Bankhead/
- Max Perkins (one of Scott’s early editors): http://www.biography.com/people/maxwell-perkins-21264879
- Henry Mencken (literary critic who Scott admires and Zelda finds boring): http://www.biography.com/people/hl-mencken-37299
- John Emerson & Anita Loos (Scott introduces Zelda to this Hollywood couple in hopes of making an actress of her): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Emerson_(filmmaker) & http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/11/anita-loos-gentlemen-prefer-blondes-screenwriter-silent-era-films
- D.W. Griffith (offers, then rejects, a movie deal for Scott): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._W._Griffith
- Dorothy Gish (actress that was going to star in said movie): http://www.goldensilents.com/stars/dorothygish.html
- Thomas Boyd (Scott’s St. Paul bookstore-owning pal): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Alexander_Boyd & https://muse.jhu.edu/book/4201
- John Dos Passos (writer friend of Scott’s): http://www.johndospassos.com/
- Carl Van Vechten (writer friend of Scott’s): http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/white-mischief-2
- Gene Buck (friend of Scott’s, but Zelda suspects he gets too close to Gene’s wife Helen): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Buck
- Natalie Barney (encourages Zelda’s interest in art): https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/natalie_barney
- Ada “Bricktop” Smith (teaches the “Black Bottom” aka the Charleston to Zelda et al): http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2015/10/ada_bricktop_smith_once_the_grande_dame_of_paris_nightclub_scene.html
- Georges Guibourg (Zelda and Scott go to hear him sing in Paris): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Guibourg
- Archie MacLeish (Riviera friend of Scott and Zelda’s): http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3944/the-art-of-poetry-no-18-archibald-macleish
- Charlie MacArthur (Riviera friend of Scott and Zelda’s): http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/MacArthur__Charles.html
- Alexander Woollcott (Zelda and Scott attend a roast in his honor): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Woollcott
- Morley Callaghan (friend of Hemingway’s): http://www.editoreric.com/greatlit/authors/Callaghan.html
- Lubov Egorova (Zelda’s ballet teacher): http://www.russianballethistory.com/augustspecialfeatures.htm ... scroll down to about half way through the page
- Bob McAlmon (editor/publisher who first suggests that Hemingway and Scott may be having an affair): http://www.neilpearsonrarebooks.com/BOOKS-AND-ARTICLES/a-scarlet-pansy-robert-mcalmons-secret-book
- Constance Talmadge (Scott attempted to write a screenplay for a movie she would star in): https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-constance-talmadge-and-norma-talmadge/
- Lois Moran (the young starlet Scott becomes involved with): http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/cvvpw/gallery/moran1.html
- Fred Niblo (Scott and Zelda run into him in Genoa): http://www.silentsaregolden.com/articles/frednibloarticle.html
- Carmel Myers (Scott and Zelda run into her in Genoa): http://theredlist.com/wiki-2-24-525-526-651-view-1920s-2-profile-carmel-myers.html
- Djuna Barnes (Parisian friend of Zelda’s): http://pictorial.jezebel.com/the-life-of-djuna-barnes-stunt-reporter-and-shocking-m-1706828271
- Sylvia Beach (Parisian friend of Zelda’s): http://www.thehemingwayproject.com/in-praise-of-sylvia-beach/
- Jean Cocteau (Parisian friend of Zelda’s): http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4485/the-art-of-fiction-no-34-jean-cocteau
