Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
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 Front cover | |
| Author | Therese Fowler |
|---|---|
| Genre | Biographical novel |
| Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
Publication date | 11 April 2013 |
| Pages | 375 |
| ISBN | 978-1-250-02865-5 |
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is a 2013 biographical novel by Therese Fowler about Zelda Fitzgerald. It follows her through her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the pair's writing careers, their relationship to Ernest Hemingway, the upbringing of their daughter Frances Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda's declining mental health and death. It was adapted into a television series, Z: The Beginning of Everything, which aired in 2017 after a 2015 pilot episode.
The book describes the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, an American socialite who became a symbol of the Jazz Age. She married the author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who later wrote The Great Gatsby (1925).[1] While researching Zelda Fitzgerald, the author Therese Fowler found that her perceptions of the figure were misrepresentations, and she became inspired to "set the record straight" in popular culture.[2] Z received a first printing run of 150,000 copies, and was published by St. Martin's Press in the United States and John Murray in the United Kingdom.[3][4][5]
Synopsis
The book is a fictionalized account of Zelda Fitzgerald's life. In her early life in Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald is portrayed as the subject of desire by many men. Her future husband F. Scott Fitzgerald—stationed in Montgomery as a World War I soldier—asks her out, but Zelda's father is disapproving and Scott is initially unsuccessful in his writing. He achieves fame with This Side of Paradise (1920), following which the couple began to attend increasingly raucous parties.[6][3] The novel gives focus to the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Scott, and how Hemingway disliked Zelda.[7] After the couple's daughter Frances Scott Fitzgerald is born, it shows Zelda publishing short stories under Scott's name, and studying art and ballet.[6] The book covers the mental illnesses of Zelda in later life, and her death in a sanatorium fire.[7]