Two Fictional Takes on Zelda Fitzgerald

I liked the window in on Zelda Fitzgerald and her tumultuous marriage to writer F. Scott Fitzgerald by fictional psychiatric nurse Anna Howard in Call Me Zelda: A Novel by Erika Robuck. Anna becomes a Fitzgerald family employee, leaving her job at a Baltimore residential psychiatric clinic. She has a way with Zelda as much as anyone else does, and Zelda and Scott come to depend upon Anna for help. Soon she is spending most of her time at their home, caring for their daughter and completing other household tasks that fall outside the scope of her original agreement with the Fitzgeralds. As those interested in the Fitzgeralds' personal lives already know, their marriage, home life and finances were in a constant up-and-down motion, and good moods could shift at any moment.

What I liked about this book is that we got to know Anna both during and away from her work with the Fitzgeralds. We had a window into her world too, and it was one I was very interested in reading about. Anna has experienced tremendous loss in her personal life before the novel begins but remains very close to her extended family. Not only is she a gifted and devoted nurse, but she is a caregiver for her aging parents and close to her brother, a priest. At the risk of giving the book away, I like that Anna got her happy ending.

The book pulls away some from the Fitzgeralds in the second half of the book when Anna remains in Baltimore and Zelda Fitzgerald goes to stay at Highland Hospital, Asheville's psychiatric hospital. Though Anna thinks of Scott and Zelda often, she has not been in their employ for over a decade when a letter from Zelda causes Anna to make another journey for her former patient. This trip ends in Asheville the day before a fire destroyed the main building of the hospital, killing several patients who were not able to escape from their locked rooms. Zelda was one of these patients.

Directly after finishing Call Me Zelda, I dove right into Guests on Earth by Lee Smith. I had the pleasure of hearing Smith read from this novel a few months ago, which really makes a story come alive for me. I liked Guests on Earth for many of the same reasons I liked Call Me Zelda: it's an observer's description of the Fitzgeralds, except this time mostly Zelda. I thought Guests on Earth was a good one. I enjoyed reading it (I've never met a Lee Smith novel I didn't like), but it had less Zelda in it than I envisioned before I started reading the book.

Using a similar technique, Smith writes her novel using Highland Hospital as the setting and the narrator is a fellow patient, a girl named Evalina. Evalina's life at Highland, including her encounters with Zelda, is what makes up the plot of this novel. Evalina Toussaint is a misplaced young girl in need of a caring environment in which to grow up, and ends up at Asheville's Highland Hospital where Zelda is also a patient. The two get to know each other during Zelda's early days at the hospital, but in later years the two don't have a close relationship, though each of the women is still a Highland Hospital resident.

This book really is about Evalina's life, most of which happened at Highland Hospital. Evalina befriends many fellow residents, takes a leave of absence to see the world with a man she doesn't end up marrying as planned, and winds up back at Highland as a part-time staff member. Like Call Me Zelda, Guests on Earth ends with the hospital's tragic fire but the getting there (even though I knew it was coming) seemed rushed at the end.

Both books paint Zelda as troubled but extremely talented at writing (Call Me Zelda) and dancing (Guests on Earth). I'm just fascinated by the Fitzgeralds.

It's Monday! What are you reading? (Holiday week edition)

 

It's a short week around here, which gives me a little more time for reading. I'm feeling ambitious. Here's what I'm reading this week:

In the car on audiobook: The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron by Howard Bryant.

On my iPod: On Folly Beach by Karen White.

For review (coming soon): 

The Awakening of Miss Prim: A Novel by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera (in time for its publication date July 8)

Wedding in Provence: A Novel by Ellen Sussman (publication date July 15)

And pulled from my stack that I've been looking forward to reading:

Hiding Edith by Kathy Kacer

Call me Zelda by Erika Robuck

Guests on Earth by Lee Smith

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

What are you reading?

This event is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. 

Silver Linings Playbook and Building My Own Syllabus

Last week I was putting together my syllabus for a year-long American literature course I'll be teaching to ninth and tenth graders at a homeschool co-op starting in the fall, my favorite genre. There are so many wonderful things I've considered including that I needed advice and perspective from others to help me make sure I wasn't overloading the class. So I tossed the question out on Facebook to find out people's favorite and least favorite books they read in high school. For my purposes this time I threw out everything that wasn't American lit and made my choices from the feedback I got.

Did you see Silver Linings Playbook a few months ago when it was out? I loved the complex characters, plot and the balance between funny and serious moments throughout the film. I thought Bradley Cooper as the main character Pat was wonderful. While I liked him just fine in The Hangover and Wedding Crashers, I loved seeing what else he could do.

I just read the book version by Matthew Quick earlier this week. There are some big differences between the book and the movie, but I liked each of them for different reasons. In both the book and the movie Pat is trying to win back his ex-wife by getting in shape and reading everything she has put on the syllabus for her high school English students. Though he doesn't love what she's selected, he plows through them, looking forward to the day when he'll be reunited with his ex-wife and they can discuss the novels.

Two-thirds of the books Pat reads are ones I've chosen for my syllabus: The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms, The Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn. The two Pat read that I didn't pick are The Catcher in the Rye (which almost made it on to the syllabus. If I teach this class again I might teach this one.) and The Bell Jar. 

Here are the rest of the novels that made it in: My Antonia, Of Mice and Men and The Color Purple. We'll also read A Streetcar Named Desire and bits and pieces of Phyllis Wheatley, Anne Bradstreet, Thoreau, Whitman, Emerson, Sandburg and Dickinson. I'm looking forward to rereading all these classics myself to prepare.

Have I missed anything What other books do you consider to be important to American literature?

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

I enjoyed every moment of reading Therese Anne Fowler's latest novel, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. I had one course with her back in 2005 during our graduate studies at NC State University. Each week our class members read aloud from the larger project we were working on and gave feedback to our classmates. It was one of the best classes I've ever had because I developed a lot in a short time with my own writing, and fine-tuned my listening and editing skills. I tap into that all the time when I'm helping others through writing coaching services. (Elaine Orr, who has also just published a book, was our professor. I'll be reading her latest, A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa, soon.)

Therese's writing now is fiction and different from the creative nonfiction we were workshopping in that class. I thought what Therese was working on in that class was wonderful, and I'm hoping that one day she'll publish some her creative nonfiction work.

I'm a little obsessed with the Fitzgeralds right now since the latest movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby is about to be released, I've just listened to Tender is the Night in the car, read The Paris Wife (the Fitzgeralds appear in this book about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley by Paula McLain) and I'm thinking through the high school American literature course I'll be teaching in fall. The Great Gatsby is at the top of my list of novels my students will read.

Z is written from the perspective of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Montgomery, Alabama, socialite and wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though Zelda was a talented dancer, artist and writer on her own, her talents were overshadowed by her husband's fame. The book chronicles the Fitzgeralds' courtship and marriage through both budgets and financial excess, home life and travel abroad, deep passion and disdain for each other, and the highest highs and lowest lows of their marriage. Their relationship started out beautifully: they were the perfect couple, well-known and deeply in love with each other. As the years progressed Zelda was pushed aside by Scott so he could focus on his writing career and his affairs with other women, some of which he barely attempted to conceal from Zelda.

Throughout the novel, Zelda struggles to support her husband, the breadwinner of their family, while raising their daughter Scottie and developing herself as an artist. Scott is often resistant to letting Zelda pursue anything that will get in the way of how he thinks Zelda should be spending her time.

This book is one of several that have come out in the past several years that give a voice to the wives of important men through historical fiction. Loving Frank (Nancy Horan) and The Paris Wife were two such books I very much enjoyed. Many of us know that the Fitzgeralds had a difficult marriage at times, and this books gives us a window into that relationship from the wife's perspective, something I'd love to see more of in fiction. I'm liking this trend. 

Look what I just got in the mail!

I can't wait to start reading these two books. Therese Ann Fowler and I were classmates in Elaine Neil Orr's creative writing workshop at NC State in 2005. I'm so excited for both of them and their new books. 

Rereading

The other day on Twitter I came across an article published in the Mail called "Reading a book really is better the second time round - and can even offer mental health benefits." I completely agree! I've reread several things in the past several years for the second time, and found those stories to be much more wonderful the second time around.

Here are a few of my favorite rereads:

Lord of the Flies (blog post coming soon on this one) by William Golding
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Pride and Prejudice (OK, anything Jane Austen)
The Color Purple (turning 30 this year, by the way) by Alice Walker
A Wrinkle in Time (my most recent reread) by Madeleine L'Engle
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Diary of Anne Frank
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

What are your favorite rereads?

F. Scott Fitzgerald Interview

I saw this on Twitter a while back, shared by The Guardian. It's a transcript of an interview that appeared in the New York Post in 1936. In it F. Scott Fitzgerald describes his childhood, family history and his writing. It's an interesting read.

Gatsby

I've had a lot of fun in the past couple of years rereading the classics that were on my required reading lists in high school. As it turns out, as much as I enjoyed them before and as much as they influenced me to keep the literary analysis going by majoring in English in college, I've enjoyed them even more by rereading them 10 to 15 years later. Jane Eyre, The Scarlett Letter, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women and several others all fall into this category, and so does F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic masterpiece: The Great Gatsby.

I read this novel for the first time as a junior in high school and for the second about two summers ago while at the beach. I loved it so much more the second time, and I'm now so, so hoping that rumors of a movie version turn out to be true (I can see Leonardo DiCaprio as Nick Carraway; what about you?). Three more Gatsby-related things have recently popped up on my radar: 1) The house said to inspire Fitzgerald during the writing of the novel was recently torn down (read about it); 2) I recently listened to Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise on my iPod while training for the latest half marathon (the book that first brought Fitzgerald notoriety as a writer); and 3) I listened to The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganek recently in the car.

I'm always sad when historic buildings have to be torn down, and this one is no different. It just seems a shame that a place with a grand past but some wear and tear can't be restored by someone. It's especially sad when a house has such literary significance.

The Summer We Read Gatsby was a fun read, and I was glad to have already read and enjoyed the original novel, though this new one was just a fun story, such that could be enjoyed as a summer beach read due to its length, quirky and funny characters, mystery and setting.

Speaking of summer reading, I just can't wait to get my hands on a few things I've been dying to read. To me, a vacation anywhere is the perfect way to enjoy a story. I'll be reading lots and lots this summer and of course, reporting it here.

Jane Eyre Movie

I've been pretty excited about the Jane Eyre movie coming out. I've been looking forward to it for months and I've done several things to get prepared. First, one of my book clubs chose it as the March book, so I reread it a couple of weeks ago. Second, Goodreads has been promoting the movie as well by holding a contest where you read the book, take a quiz and register to win free movie tickets. Well, guess what? I won two tickets to the premiere which was last night, and took a friend with me.

As I reread the novel, I enjoyed it so much more than when I read it for school (both in high school and graduate school I think) - very much like my reread of Age of Innocence, The Great Gatsby and other classics I've reread in the past couple of years. I had a hard time putting it down, which worked out well since the second half of the book was read while I was on vacation and I had some extra time to devote to reading.


Finally, I went to see the movie last night and was very satisfied with the way it was done. I like the creative license taken with the arrangement of the movie - the movie opens near the middle of the book. And, a long book was condensed into a two-hour movie. Though some things, like Jane's relationship with the Rivers family, was glazed over, nothing was left out so much that I felt the book wasn't being done justice. And, even with being shortened everything still made sense. The ending was done a bit differently from the book but worked I'd say. And even though I've just reread the book, it took seeing the movie to remind me what a creepy story it is (old creaky house, storms, crazy lady in the attic, etc.). 

I'll be seeing it again with my book club Monday night, followed by a discussion of book versus movie. Good thing I liked it as much as I did!

Montgomery, Alabama

Our last stop on the way back to Atlanta was in Montgomery, Alabama, where we had a few things on our agenda. The first was another stop on the Southern Literary Trail at the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum at 919 Felder Avenue. Zelda was a Montgomery native and met Scott in 1918 at a country club dance while he was stationed there with the U.S. Army. We passed the site of this country club (now a Sonic) on our way to lunch afterwards.

The home remains the only of the Fitzgeralds' many residences to still be in existence. The couple and their daughter, Scottie, rented the home from September 1931 to February 1932. Zelda wrote her first draft of her only novel, Save Me the Waltz, while they lived here. Scott started writing Tender is the Night.



Today the home is subdivided into several apartments, and the first one on the right downstairs is the museum. About three rooms are on display and have furniture both of the period and that the Fitzgeralds owned. The museum's director, Michael McCreedy, showed us around and provided lots of helpful information. As it turns out, the Southern Literary Trail was born out of a meeting held in one of the museum's rooms. Ten of Zelda's paintings are on display at the museum, and more will be exhibited this fall at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts to coincide with a Eudora Welty photography exhibit. There's a good chance I'll need to go back to Montgomery for all of that!

One interesting fact that McCreedy shared is that Zelda's family, the Sayres, was the owner of the home that became the First White House of the Confederacy, and the family sold the home to the CSA to house Jefferson Davis and his family in 1861 before they relocated to Richmond, Virginia. So that meant that after we met up with an old friend for lunch, we had to check it out for ourselves.

The home is furnished beautifully with period pieces, including some from the Sayre family. It contains many items from the Davis family as well, and there is also information about the home's preservation.

All in all, pretty interesting stuff. The trip was a huge success. Now I guess it's time to start planning the next one!

Asheville

I used Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains: A Guide last week while in Asheville with my family. The book is divided into tours that work geographically. I was able to do parts of tours 8 and 9 (Weaverville and North Asheville, and Downtown and South Asheville, respectively), though a bit out of order.

The night we arrived we visited the Biltmore House for the Candlelight Tour and saw the house in all its Christmas finery. I had read ahead in my Guide to know that:

• George Vanderbilt’s library housed 24,000 volumes.
• Henry James and Edith Wharton (childhood friend of Edith Vanderbilt) had visited the house in 1905. Wharton had just published The House of Mirth. Each author is the namesake of a suite of rooms at Biltmore.

We found a monument to O. Henry’s story, “Gift of the Magi” set in bronze in a sidewalk on a street in downtown Asheville, and later we visited the Riverside Cemetery and saw O. Henry’s gravesite.


Also at Riverside Cemetery is the grave of Thomas Wolfe, and the gates of the cemetery also honor him.

My dad and I drove by the Richmond Hill Inn one morning while we were out to see the site where Georgia-born Poet Sidney Lanier camped one winter before he died in 1881. The Inn was later built on the site and the Sidney Lanier Garden was planted behind the Inn. Well, supposedly. When we arrived, the Inn was closed, but a gate was open just wide enough for us to get in to look around. I poked all around but couldn’t find the Garden. Instead, we did find this (see picture below). An arsonist set fire to one of the buildings of the Richmond Hill Inn early in 2009 and authorities have yet to solve the case. It caused $7 million in damages. You can read more about it in the Asheville Citizen-Times here.

Near the Inn is the last building that remains of Highland Hospital. Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, was hospitalized here in the summer of 1936 and several other times before her death. She suffered from schizophrenia. In 1948, hospital’s main building, which housed Zelda and other patients, caught fire and Zelda died of smoke inhalation. Today what remains of the hospital is Homewood, a home on the property for the hospital’s main physician, Robert Carroll. It’s now a special events facility.

In 1936 while Zelda was at Highland Hospital, Scott lived at The Grove Park Inn. He had tried to rent a space at Julia Wolfe’s boarding house, The Old Kentucky Home, but was turned away because Julia didn’t rent to alcoholics. The Grove Park still celebrates Scott’s birthday each year on September 24, though he was reportedly a difficult guest due to heavy drinking, an extramarital affair and a suicide threat during his stay.

A number of other writers have stayed at the Grove Park including Charles Frazier, Margaret Mitchell, Alex Haley and Pat Conroy.

100 Best Beach Books Ever

Recently, over 16,000 people voted in National Public Radio's online poll, "100 Best Beach Books Ever." Today, they revealed the results. I've read 38 of the 100, and many that I haven't yet read are ones I'd like to read.

I've done a lot of beach reading myself and here are a few of my favorites:

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch
A Painted House by John Grisham
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

Rereading a Classic: The Great Gatsby

The National Endowment for the Arts has selected F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as one of its selections for the program, The Big Read. This inspired me to reread it earlier this week. I had forgotten how concise but dense the novel is, as I read it in one day at the beach, around time with friends and family, a jigsaw puzzle, and reading a magazine I picked up in Savannah last weekend.

This was my second time reading the 1925 classic, the first having been in 1995 for a high school English class. I remember pondering the question of Gatsby’s greatness then. I think I argued against it based on his failure to win Daisy Buchanan’s heart, and his tragic death. I think I can still agree with my earlier answer, but I have to say that I marvel at how well Gatsby had his partygoers and other West Egg residents convinced of his greatness. I know, though, that everything fell apart in the end. I can think of a few celebrities and politicians who have accomplished a similar feat, only to have it all come crashing down. I’m going to keep this in mind as I begin Elizabeth Edwards’ Resilience.