F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography

A comprehensive study of the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, related in two-year chapters by twenty-three leading writers on the Jazz Age author

 

There never was a good biography of a novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Crack-Up. There couldnt be. He is too many people, if hes any good. Fitzgerald, a good novelist by any measure, has tested this challenge to the biographers art. A new star illuminating the literary scene; a chronicler of the Jazz Age in all its brilliance and tarnish; a romantic symbol of the American century; an acute observer of societys best and worst, and of his own star-crossed career; a midlife burnout at forty-four, leaving an unfinished masterpiece in his wakehe was a man of many aspects, a writer whose complexity and multitudes this composite biography finally aptly portrays. 

Bringing together twenty-three leading writers and scholars on Fitzgerald, each focusing on two years of his life, this volume takes its cue from Henry Jamess remark, cited by preeminent Fitzgerald biographer Scott Donaldson: The whole of anything is never told; you can only take what groups together. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography presents a new way of grouping together biographical material and perspectives, considering from various angles the author's best-known works as well as understudied writings, including neglected stories and forays into autobiography such as What I Think and Feel at 25 and How to Live on $36,000 a Year. The glamor and fame that made F. Scott and Zelda mythic figures of their time appear here alongside the personal experiences that he occasionally included in his writing: the beginnings as well as the poignant end; the literary relationships that informed and framed his work, set against solitary effort, fame, and failures. This remarkable study of F. Scott Fitzgerald reflects the multifaceted whole of a life in many parts in new and revelatory ways.

Contributors: Jade Broughton Adams; Ronald Berman; William Blazek, Liverpool Hope U; Elisabeth Bouzonviller, Jean Monnet U; Jackson Bryer, U of Maryland; Kirk Curnutt, Troy U; Catherine Delesalle-Nancey, U Jean Moulin Lyon 3; Scott Donaldson; Kayla Forrest; Marie-Agnès Gay, U Jean Moulin Lyon 3; Joel Kabot, U of Maryland, Baltimore; Sara Kosiba; Arne Lunde, U of California, Los Angeles; Bryant Mangum, Virginia Commonwealth U; Martina Mastandrea; Philip McGowan, Queens U Belfast; David Page; Walter Raubicheck, Pace U; Ross Tangedal, U of WisconsinStevens Point; Helen Turner, Linnaeus U; James L. W. West III, Pennsylvania State U.