I don't often read biographies but this one (all about Zelda Fitzgerald and quite a bit about Scott Fitzgerald) was quite good.

If you are interested in her, him, the era, mental illness, addiction, flappers, writing, love . . .I recommend this book.

You know, I only read this book over the summer, but I still can't even remember whether I finished it or not. Not a good sign of a good book.

A very thorough account of Zelda Fitzgerald indeed. I feel like Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, which I read prior to this biography, may have glossed over some things a bit.

It's hard for me to distinguish my feelings on the person of Zelda herself and the writing of the book.

I soon realized that I would never be friends with Zelda and Scott in real life. They are flighty, self absorbed, terrible people. Because they are both awful, they are perfect for each other.

Milford does a good job of setting the scene and retelling their stories. However there were parts that seemed to drag on, which may have reflected how Zelda felt about her life.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I am not sure why but I really struggled to finish this book. It was incredibly well researched, well-written and fascinating. At times, I became so frustrated and disgusted with Zelda's care...but that was more about the times than the people.

I had a lot of misconceptions about Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald. I'm intrigued enough that I will add some of her work to my TBR. Also a great book for discussion at book club!

Certainly, as we have seen, Fitzgerald drew almost ruthlessly upon her letters and diaries, although Zelda gave no sign that she disapproved; for Fitzgerald was the professional and not Zelda.

The sixth story, "A Millionaire's Girl," was published by the Saturday Evening Post, and although it was Zelda's story, Scott's name alone was signed to it. (A wire from New York assured him that the Post would pay $4,000 if Zelda's name was omitted, and it was.) Scott alter wrote that the story "appeared under my name but actually I had nothing to do with it except for suggesting a theme and working on the proof of the completed manuscript. This same cooperation extends to other material gathered...under our joint names, though often when published in that fashion I had nothing to do with the thing from start to finish except supplying my name."

A neurotypical person will never be able to write a credible biography about a neuroatypical. Such an author's objectivity is little more than brown nosing the status quo, and if the status quo is inherently bent on the genocide of the subject of the biography, the author will inevitably go with the flow, and then what will we have. I will admit, Milford had me going to the point that I nearly reached the end with a four star award in mind, but skimming through the end notes reveal the choice phrase of '[F]or what I take to be the essence of the special fury, terror and revenge of the insane see Blaise Cendrar, Moravagine' as reference, which is such a disgusting frame of thought that it evaporated all the credibility of her analysis and rendered it as little more than the level of Wikipedia trawling. There's a good amount of concrete facts and quotations, almost too much of the latter if you ask me, and that's where the three stars come from. The final two are saved for a future biographer who I hope resonates with Zelda on a personal enough level, in addition to a professional one, to revive her into more than yet another mad author's wife in the attic. I've read Milford's story, but there are so many holes where a human Zelda barely pokes through that I'm willing to hold out for more.

She gave a friend a copy of Faulkner's new novel, Sanctuary, ,and was delighted when she learned that the woman was sleepless after reading it.

Her novel was intensely, even naïvely autobiographical, and as she drew on her own life, so she drew on her life with Scott, for it was her material as well as his. Scott strenuously disagreed.

F. Scott Fitzgerald has been haunting me recently more than I would like, but that's what one gets when one teaches high school students for a living. An alphabet title challenge granted me additional motivation to seek out further context, and I hoped to find the level of quality that [b:Painted Shadow: The Life of Vivienne Eliot, First Wife of T. S. Eliot|387266|Painted Shadow The Life of Vivienne Eliot, First Wife of T. S. Eliot|Carole Seymour-Jones|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320451660s/387266.jpg|376903] or, even better, [b:Alice James|502096|Alice James|Jean Strouse|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1435016648s/502096.jpg|490180] had delivered: perfectly aware of how the masculine fame renders objectivity a farce when it comes to female subjects, and thus willing to go the extra mile in terms of research and analysis. Alas, while research was plentiful, I rarely got a continuity that didn't set out to largely exonerate Scott at the cost of fleshing out Zelda. Where, for example, did Zelda develop her taste for Faulkner? If she was a friend of Stein, among famous others, why do we get every single excerpt of Scott's writing on Zelda and not Zelda's writings to these friends? I welcomed any moment in which outsiders looked in at the Fitzgeralds, but the prolonged end of the book with its constant institutionalizations make for an unbelievably neutered narrative whose occasional observances of a greater reality aren't grounded in any sort of credibly gradual development. The infamous end note, again, clinched the rating, and the fact that Milford thought an armchair critic's ideas about schizophrenia would be more valuable than, say, a record of Zelda's reading habits is pathetic in its "Look at me! Aren't I clever/sane?!?" mess. All in all, little more than a fetish heap, the only redeeming aspect being the extended bibliography of sources one would peruse under their own power in hopes of seeing what the obsequious cherry picking passed over.

'He put her into a taxi, and as he did so they noticed that Zelda's entire manner changed; Callaghan wrote: "...it was as if she knew he had command over her; she agreed meekly...And suddenly she had said goodnight like a small girl and was whisked away from us—and Scott dismissed the little scene almost brusquely."

Scott behaved badly and grew insulting and angry when Zelda would refuse, for example, to show him a story she was writing...Zelda gave no details of their quarrels to her doctors, whereas Scott was quite willing to discuss them. He struck the doctors as acting martyred, lacking in understanding, and uncertain of himself.

"I am a professional writer, with a huge following. I am the highest paid short story writer in the world. I have at various times dominated..."
Zelda again broke in: "It seems to me you are making a rather violent attack on a third rate talent then."
Repeatedly throughout the afternoon, they came back to this point: Scott was the professional writer and he was supporting Zelda; therefore, the entire fabric of their life was his material, none of it was Zelda's.

There's still a long way to go when it comes to representations of the intersection of literature, women, and history. I originally planned on tag teaming my reading of this with Fitzgerald's [b:The Collected Writings|150105|The Collected Writings|Zelda Fitzgerald|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1392037000s/150105.jpg|144875], but now I'd prefer to knock Milford's fetishistic analysis out of my head and in order to give Fitzgerald a reading on her own terms. I know that every biography of a woman won't be this badly handled, but it's exhausting watching the public fall for the same academic farce again and again and again. It only justifies my continued blocking out of opinions that refuse to factor reality into their reading, as this tripe is the inevitable result. Perhaps something autobiographical would be a good palate cleanser. Bullshit is more tolerable if it's self-reflexive.

Zelda insisted that she did not want to be dependent on Scott. Dr. Rennie asked her if she meant financially dependent, and Zelda said: "Every way. I want to be, to say, when he says something that is not so, then I want to do something so good, that I can say, 'That is a bad damned lie!' and have something to back it up, that I can say it."

Suddenly she began to cry uncontrollably. "I can't get on with my husband and I can't live away from him—materially impossible—so I think the only thing to do is to get my mind on something....I'm so tired of compromises. Shaving off one part of oneself after another until there is nothing left..."

Over the years, I've read a lot about Scott & Zelda. I'm so sorry I didn't read this book first. I tore through the text and whenever I wasn't reading thought about Zelda and her story almost constantly.

Milford's text allows the reader to appreciate Zelda Fitzgerald for all that she was: muse, spitfire, madwoman, and most of all, victim. Milford uses Zelda's own words -- culled from her own correspondence, diaries, and fiction -- to document mental illness in a vivid and frightening way. In my previous studies of the couple, I somehow never grasped that Zelda was more than just petulant, sulky, and eccentric (although she was all of those things as well). She was a delusional schizophrenic with a semi-abusive, alcoholic, genius of a husband. In other words, she never had a chance. This book will leave you with a greater depth of understanding and empathy for Zelda ... and a good reason to revisit Tender is the Night!