Thursday, April 25, 2013

Review: Z - A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
By Therese Anne Fowler
St. Martin's Press April 2013
374 pages
From the library

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Historians and book lovers alike are fascinated by the tumultuous relationship of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. While Scott was lauded for his literary achievements, readers were equally interested in their drunken public arguments, rising and falling finances, and the implication that Zelda's husband reshaped her burgeoning literary efforts. In this novel, Therese Anne Fowler imagines the life of the woman who was overshadowed by her husband in life but became equally infamous after her death.

As you may have guessed last year when I re-read every F Scott novel, I am a huge fan of Fitzgerald's writing. I have read Zelda's novel Save Me The Waltz, as well as a lot of biographical material about the couple. It is clear that Ms. Fowler has done a copious amount of research herself in order to write this book. The story opens with the first time Zelda and F Scott met and races through their fabulous and tumultuous lives as some of the brightest stars of literary circles.

Historically Zelda suffers from a lack of a distinctive voice. When you read the Fitzgerald novels, it is easy to see the overlap - Zelda in F Scott's work and F Scott in hers. Much of her work was actually published under his name in order to get more money. While reading this book, I think it can be difficult to remember that this is fiction. Through Fowler, we are imagining what events and reactions might have been like, but we are looking at just one possibility. As someone who has read the source material, Zelda's voice never felt entirely authentic to me.

While it's tempting for us to feel like Fowler has vindicated Zelda, she has essentially done the same thing as F Scott. He molded her life so that she would be perceived as a dutiful wife and modified her writing so that she would be remembered that way. Is that any different from what Fowler has done? She has undoubtedly started with the deepest research and best intentions, but she too has chosen to portray Zelda in a specific way.

There is only so much we can claim to know about a person, in spite of letters and articles and novels. Therese Fowler has utilized fiction to bring Zelda to life and there is a lot to enjoy about this story. The pacing is perfect and the tension between Zelda the loving wife and Zelda the yearning artist is beautifully written. But I found myself wishing we got more insight into her mental condition (if  such a thing truly existed and wasn't merely a symptom of F Scott's insecurity). Reading Z reminds us that Zelda was a real woman with real emotions and a real story and I found myself preferring whatever snippets of truth we have to another glossy fabrication. 

4 comments:

  1. Unfortunately,I don't think we'll ever get more insight into Zelda, particularly her mental condition, unless somebody, somewhere discovers a secret cache of her letters/journals/etc . I liked this book a lot and I look forward to reading Save Me the Waltz on vacation this year.

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    1. I think you are unfortunately correct. I enjoyed this as a novel, but got a little frustrated with all of the acclaim that Fowler gave her a voice. Yes, she did but it was a voice - not Zelda's own voice.

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  2. I'm so curious about this book. Mostly because I'm curious about Zelda as a person. I might read this, I might not. I'm conflicted!

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    1. It's a good read and it moves quickly. If you are curious about Zelda, I think it's a good starting point as long as you don't take everything as fact!

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