Zelda (65 page)
Authors: Nancy Milford
To Vesta Svenson who first suggested that I read Fitzgerald, to Mrs. Toni Milford who offered intelligent advice, to Judith Gustafson who typed for more years than we like to recall and to Nancy Wechsler for her counsel in my behalf, my best thanks. A final note of gratitude to my editor Genevieve Young for her constant belief and her clear head.
And to the only person who was behind me the whole way, who lived with me as I lived with and tried to shape the materials of this book,
Ich bin din….
T
he following abbreviations are used. My pagination is usually to the most available edition, which is indicated in parentheses.
B&D
The Beautiful and Damned
, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1922. (The Scribner Library paperback.)
CT
Caesar’s Things
, an unpublished novel by Zelda Fitzgerald.
CU
The Crack-Up
, edited by Edmund Wilson, New Directions, New York, 1945. (New Directions Paperbook, 4th printing, 1959.)
FSF
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1925. (The Scribner Library paperback.)
Ledger
Fitzgerald’s 189-page record book from which some pages have been torn and others are missing. It contains “Record of Published Fiction; Novels, Plays, Stories (Not including Unpaid for Juvenilia),” his “Earnings by years,” “Zelda’s Earnings,” and a 39-page “Autobiographical Chart,” or “Outline of My Life.”
Letters
The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald
, edited by Andrew Turnbull, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1963.
NM
Nancy Milford
Scottie
Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith
SMTW
Save Me the Waltz
, Zelda Fitzgerald, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1932. (Southern Illinois University Press, 1967. Hardcover.)
Tender
Tender Is the Night
, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1934. (The Scribner Library paperback of the original text.)
Cowley—
Tender
Three Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald; Tender Is the Night
, “The Author’s Final Version,” edited by Malcolm Cowley, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1953.
TSOP
This Side of Paradise
, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1920. (The Scribner Library paperback.)
ZSF
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
It is difficult to imagine having had to work without the benefit of the two biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald—the excellent
The Far Side of Paradise
by Arthur Mizener, and the deeply moving
Scott Fitzgerald
by the late Andrew Turnbull. I am grateful for them both. Among the many books and articles that I read while preparing to write this book, the following were especially helpful:
The Composition of Tender Is the Night
by Matthew J. Bruccoli;
That Summer in Paris
by Morley Callaghan;
The Mind of the South
by W. J. Cash;
Beloved Infidel
and
College of One
by Sheilah Graham;
I
Never Promised You a Rose Garden
by Hannah Green;
A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway;
The Apprentice Fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1909–1917
, edited by John Kuehl;
The Divided Self, The Politics of Experience
and
The Bird of Paradise
by R. D. Laing;
The Genain Quadruplets
, edited by David Rosenthal;
Schizophrenia as a Human Process
by Harry Stack Sullivan; “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” Calvin Tomkins’
New Yorker
profile of Gerald and Sara Murphy;
Patriotic Gore
and
The Shores of Light
by Edmund Wilson.
Prologue
PAGE
xii I remember Gerald Murphy … : Gerald Murphy to NM, interview. April 26, 1963.
xii Sara Murphy caught something of it … : Sara Murphy to FSF, August 20 [no year].
xiv I remember talking to two old men…: Colonel Jesse Traywick to NM, interview, May 31, 1968.
xiv How curious that the same woman … :
Letters
, p. 173.
xiv Once Zelda asked the lady … : Mrs. Nash Read to NM, interview, July 27, 1963.
xiv Writing about Montgomery … : “Southern Girl,”
College Humor
, October, 1929. p. 27.
Chapter 1
3 If there was a confederate…: Sara Mayfield to NM, interview, March 16, 1965.
3 Willis B. Machen…:
Cyclopaedia of American Biography
, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Vol. IV, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1888. Lamb’s
Biographical Dictionary of the United States
, edited by John Howard Brown, Vol. V, Federal Book Company of Boston, Boston, 1903. W. H. Perrin,
et al., Kentucky, A History of the State
, 5th ed., Batten, Louisville, 1887.
5 Anthony’s mother, Musidora Morgan, was the sister of…: Senator Morgan became something of a national figure when he urged annexation of Cuba and the Philippines. He was an expansionist who envisioned an Isthmian canal as a gateway of Southern trade with the Pacific. See the
Dictionary of American Biography
, edited by Dumas Malone, Vol. XIII, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1943, pp. 180–181. Zelda was also related through her paternal grandmother to the flamboyant and wily Confederate brigadier general “Raider” John Hunt Morgan. See Edmund Wilson,
Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War
, Oxford University Press, New York, 1962.
6 The first years of the Sayres’ marriage…: Helen F. Blackshear, “Mama Sayre, Scott Fitzgerald’s Mother-in-Law,”
The Georgia Review
, Winter, 1965, Vol. XIX,
#4
, Athens, Georgia.
7 He worked relentlessly and well…:
Who Was Who in America
, Vol. I, The A. N. Marquis Company, New York, 1942.
8 When Zelda was asked later…: The following quoted material is excerpted from records kept during Zelda’s stay at Les Rives de Prangins, June 5, 1930, to September 15, 1931, and was prepared and translated for the author by Mme. Claude Amiel at the direction of Doctor Oscar Forel, who first diagnosed Zelda Fitzgerald a schizophrenic. Hereafter this material will be referred to as Prangins.
9 The Pleasant Avenue house…: Mrs. Everet Addison to NM, December 8, 1965.
10 A younger friend of hers…: Sara Mayfield to NM, interview, March 16, 1965.
11 In 1909 Zelda’s father was appointed…: Elizabeth S. Fritz to NM, November 2. 1965.
12 Her schoolmates noticed…: Mrs. H. L. Weatherby to NM, August 12, 1963.
12 She read whatever she found…: Prangins.
13 Whether she was stylish…: Mrs. E. Addison to NM, September 15, 1965.
13 At fifteen Zelda was striking…: Mrs. E. Addison to NM, September 29, 1965.
Chapter 2
15 To make sure that all went smoothly…: Leon Ruth to NM, interview, July 30, 1963.
15 That summer a story appeared…: ZSF’s scrapbook. This is a personal scrapbook kept by ZSF which includes mementos from childhood through 1924.
16 One of her beaus remembers her…: Fred Ball to NM, interview, July 30, 1963.
16 There is a snapshot of her…:
Ibid.
17 Later in her life she wrote about Alabama Beggs…:
SMTW
, p. 29.
18 For even as her father’s position…:
SMTW
, p. 26.
19 Mrs. Sayre remembered…: Mike Fitzgerald, “‘So You’d Like to Hear About Scott…’,” The San Diego
Union
, November 10, 1963, p. e6.
19 The men came from every imaginable…:
SMTW
, pp. 34–35.
20 On their way they passed…: Mrs. Virginia Breslin to NM, November 2, 1965.
21 Key-Ice had as its centrai ritual…: Carl Carmer,
Stars Fell on Alabama
, The Literary Guild. New York, 1934, p. 15.
21 The tensions inherent in that charade of Southern womanhood…:
SMTW
, p. 56.
22 School wasn’t going well…: Montgomery Public Schools, to NM, October 13, 1965.
22 She remarked later…: Prangins.
22 On April Fool’s Day…: Mrs. E. Addison to NM, June 25, 1965.
22 There had been a lot of discussion about what the girls should wear…: Lucy Goldthwaite to NM, interview. May 20, 1965.
23 At the last moment Zelda sat in the audience…: Irby Jones to NM, interview, July 30, 1963.
Chapter 3
24 It was a hot Saturday night…: Mike Fitzgerald, “‘So You’d Like to Hear About Scott…’,” the San Diego
Union
, November 10, 1963, p. e6.
24 Later in her life Zelda remembered…:
SMTW
, p. 35.
24 Once having met…: Edmund Wilson to NM. July 19, 1965.
25 Scott once wrote…:
The Romantic Egotist
, FSF unpublished novel, p. 2.
25 “He…came from another America…”: “The Death of My Father,”
The Apprentice Fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1909–1917
, edited by John Kuehl, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1965, pp. 178–180.
26 And it was from his father…:
The Romantic Egotist
, p. 4.
26 It is not surprising, then, to discover…: “Princeton,”
Afternoon of an Author
, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, p. 72.
26 As Scott’s biographer Arthur Mizener…: Arthur Mizener,
The Far Side of Paradise
(2nd ed.), Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, p. 14.
26 He once wrote his daughter…:
Letters
, p. 5.
26 He not only cared deeply about what others thought…:
Thoughtbook of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
, Princeton University Library, Princeton, 1965, p. xvi, xxiii.
27 “I saw a musical comedy…”: “Who’s Who—and Why,”
Afternoon of an Author
, p. 83.
27 Mizener observes that…:
The Far Side of Paradise
, p. 29.
27 He decided to become…:
TSOP
, p. 43.
28 As a classmate of Scott’s said…: Professor Gregg Dougherty to NM, interview, July 1966.
28 He wrote the lyrics for
Fie! Fie! Fi-Fi!…
: “Princeton,”
Afternoon of an Author
, p. 75.
28 He later wrote that he would never forget…:
CU
, p. 24.
28 The young man who would write of the hero…:
TSOP
, pp. 17–18.
29 “But I had lost certain offices…”:
CU
, p. 76.
29 As he wrote later, “A man does not recover…”:
Ibid.
29 In “A Luckless Santa Claus,”…:
Apprentice Fiction
, p. 48.
29 She says of herself…:
Ibid.
, pp. 97–98.
30 In “Babes in the Woods,”…:
Ibid.
, p. 136.
30 She has “beauty and the most direct…”:
Ibid.
pp. 168–169.
31 “I wandered around…”:
Ibid.
, p. 170.
31 “He knew what was wrong…”:
Ibid.
, p. 151.
31 Fitzgerald spent the summer of 1917…:
Letters
, p. 318.
31 He had also begun a novel…:
Ibid.
, p. 323.
32 Shane Leslie, an Irish novelist and critic…: Shane Leslie to Charles Scribner, n.d.
32 Scott sent a chapter of it to Zelda…: FSF to ZSF, n.d. ZSF’s scrapbook.
33 Scott never forgot his first invitation…: Gerald Murphy to NM, interview, April 26, 1963. It is altogether possible that Scott or even Zelda made up this
incident to add pungency to the story of their courtship, for it does not seem in keeping with Judge Sayre’s sense of decorum. On the other hand, the Judge was seriously ill for nine months in 1918 with “nervous prostration,” according to Mrs. Sayre, who nursed him.
34 Describing her attraction to him…:
SMTW
, p. 37.
34 Many years later she wrote: “He was almost certainly falling in love…”:
CT
, Chapter IV, p. 30.
34 She teased him…:
Ibid.
, p. 32.
35 He wrote a letter to an old friend…:
Letters
, p. 454.
35 He was to call it “The most important…”: Ledger, p. 173.
35 Cautious as she had been in the late autumn…: Notebooks, G., “Descriptions of Girls.”
36 All of the dances on Zelda’s card…: ZSF’s scrapbook.
36 “She, she told herself…”:
SMTW
, p. 29.
36 In a gesture of consummate confidence…: ZSF’s scrapbook.
Chapter 4
37 But Scott did keep Zelda’s…:
TSOP
, p. 198.
38 He showed it to at least one friend…: Stephen Parrott to FSF, April 27, 1919.
38 At the end of February Zelda told him…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. February 1919).
All of Zelda’s letters to Scott in the text of this chapter were written during their February-June 1919 courtship and undated.
38 At the bottom of his invitation to Auburn…: ZSF’s scrapbook.
38 Today he remembers Zelda as…: Francis Stubbs to NM, December 28, 1965.
39 He had arrived in the city…: “Who’s Who—and Why,”
Afternoon of an Author
, p. 85.
