It’s 1937, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of ‘The Great
Gatsby” and golden boy of the 1920s, is washed up. Not only is his work not in
demand, he has trouble getting it bought at all- his tales of the glamorous
rich don’t sell in the grim 1930s. He’s an alcoholic who has been relying on
loans to support his wife Zelda in a mental institution and their daughter
Scottie in private school. He’s looking for a new life in Hollywood as a screen
writer. It seems like he’s got a good start; he’s been hired by a studio and
given an office and a weekly paycheck whether he is writing anything or not. He
reconnects with old friends: Hemingway, Bogart, Dorothy Parker. It’s a hard
drinking crew and they party hard.
But the studio doesn’t seem to like anything he gives them.
He wants to write quality and they want happy endings-whether the movie makes
sense or not. Fitzgerald is drinking heavily. This leads to more debts, health
problems, and tremendous stress on his budding relationship with gossip
columnist Sheilah Graham-a relationship already stressed by the fact that
Fitzgerald is still married to Zelda.
This is a sad story. Fitzgerald was a hard worker and
talented writer, but he could be his own worst enemy when it came to drinking
and smoking. Having to pretend to his wife and daughter that everything was
okay was incredibly stressful. The ill health that had plagued him for years
was getting worse. But he started working on what would become ‘The Last
Tycoon’, determined to make a comeback. The author does a good job of
recreating the golden age of Hollywood, while also giving the flat effect that
stress and depression give to a person struggling like Fitzgerald did- the
story is from Fitzgerald’s POV in the third person. While it dragged in a few
places, overall it’s a good story.
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