Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise Read online

  I am indebted to the Royal Literary Fund, London, for its awards of two Writers’ Fellowships (2000–2001 and 2001–2002) which have enabled me to write up the research with a strong measure of security. I am continuously grateful to Hilary Spurling, originator of the Fellowship Scheme, and to the imaginative thoughtful Steve Cook, its director. My Fellowship has been tenable at Anglia Polytechnic University Cambridge, where my time in the English Department has been joyous. At Anglia I thank my three student researchers: Jason Austen Guest (for editorial aid), Sally Peters (illuminations about Zelda’s art), most of all Miranda Landgraf (for clarity, constant attentiveness and sensitive skilled cutting). I thank Shirley Prendergast for research insights, Clare Bruges for her warmth and fortitude, the Dean, Rick Rylance; and my colleagues Rick Allen, David Booy, Peter Cattermole, Nora Crook, Mark Currie, Simon Featherstone, John Gilroy, Ted Holt, Mary Joannou, Kim Landers, Kate Rhodes, Anna Snaith, Carol Thomas, Gina Whisker, Vicki Williamson, Sue Wilson, for their encouragement. In particular Tory Young (for her vivacity), Ed Esche (for his daily supportive, often political conversations), Nigel Wheale (for his poetic wisdom and friendship) and most of all my writer friend and Head of Department, Rebecca Stott. Rebecca has read and edited many chapters, has spent long hours after work discussing the book’s minutiae. She has made a significant sparkling professional contribution to this book for which my gratitude is beyond formal words.

  On the domestic front one person is owed a benediction: my friend Angie North who runs my house and cares for my cat and deals with all emergencies during my research trips abroad. There could not be any research without her formidable kindness.

  As always I could not have written this biography without the inspiration, love and support of my family and extended family.

  First I thank Em Marion Callen, who knows every line of Zelda’s art, who trod in Zelda’s footsteps with me throughout the Deep South and in Scott’s footsteps in Princeton and New York. When I faltered she didn’t. Her very presence cheered me on.

  I thank next Jonathan Harris, Joan Harris, Miles Ashley-Smith, Beth Callen, Aaron Callen, Molly Smith Callen and Elsie Sheppard. Laura Williams kept me going when she was perilously ill herself with a bravery Zelda would have admired. Jane Shackman was always ready to listen to drafts; and at hard moments Manda Callen calmed me down and Vic Smith cheered me up. Aunt Het (Harriet) Shackman rang me four times a week for five years to console or congratulate. Larry Adler, who knew most participants in the Fitzgeralds’ drama, encouraged the project for years and was still encouraging when he died just before I wrote the last chapter. My stepchildren, Peter Adler, Wendy Adler Sonnenberg, Carole Adler Van Wieck, were wonderfully supportive during those last weeks. Ba Sheppard, after twenty-four years of faithfully challenging and enthusing me, this time read every page of the final draft and suggested pertinent provocative cuts and edits. She enhanced the text and empowered the writer. My daughter Marmoset Adler, who has had the hardest year of her young life, never once stopped showering me with cuttings, photocopies and clever ideas. I thank her most of all.

  The author and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce quotations. Quotations from the Fitzgerald holdings in the Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, are published with permission of the Princeton University Library. Excerpts from Save Me The Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald: reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from Zelda Fitzgerald: The Collected Writings, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Copyright 1932 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Copyright renewed © 1960 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan. Excerpts from short stories, articles and letters by Zelda Fitzgerald reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from Zelda Fitzgerald: The Collected Writings, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Copyright © 1991 by The Trustees under Agreement Dated July 3, 1975. Created by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith. Excerpts reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Copyright © 1994 by The Trustees under Agreement Dated July 3, 1975. Created by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith. Excerpts reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from Dear Scott/Dear Max: The Fitzgerald-Perkins Correspondence, edited by John Kuehl and Jackson Bryer. Copyright © 1971 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group: excerpts from Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Copyright 1933, 1934 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Copyright renewed © 1961, 1962 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan; from ‘The Adjuster’, in All The Sad Young Men by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Copyright 1926 by Lanahan; from The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Andrew Turnbull. Copyright © 1963 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan. Copyright renewed © 1991; from The Great Gatsby (Authorized Text Edition) by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Copyright 1925 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Copyright renewed 1953 by Lanahan. Copyright © 1991, 1992 by Eleanor Lanahan, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Samuel J. Lanahan as Trustees under Agreement Dated July 3, 1975. Created by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith; from Introduction by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan to Letters To His Daughter, edited by Andrew Turnbull. Introduction Copyright © 1965 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan. Copyright renewed © 1993 by Eleanor Lanahan, S. J. Lanahan, and Cecilia Ross; from The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (New York: Scribner, 1922). Excerpts from F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up, copyright © 1945 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. By permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated: Extracts from Dear Scott/Dearest Zelda. The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, edited by Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks, St Martin’s Press, New York, to be published in England by Bloomsbury. Heretofore unpublished letters copyright © Eleanor Lanahan, Thomas P. Roche and Christopher T. Byrne, Trustees under Agreement dated July 3, 1975, by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith; extracts from Eleanor Lanahan, Scottie The Daughter Of … The Life of Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith. Copyright © 1995 by Eleanor Lanahan. Rights in text by F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) is reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates Limited. ‘The Hours’ from The Collected Poems of John Peak Bishop, edited by Allen Tate. Copyright © 1948 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed © 1976. Used with the permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. Extracts from The Best Times: An Informal Memoir by John Dos Passos, published by the New American Library, New York, 1966, reprinted by permission of Brandt and Hochman Literary Agents, Inc. ‘Zelda’ by Helen Dunmore, from Short Days, Long Nights, Bloodaxe Books, 1991, reprinted by permission. Extracts from an unpublished essay by Sara Haardt based on her 1928 interview with Zelda Fitzgerald (Haardt Collection, Julia Rogers Library, Goucher College, Baltimore) published by permission of the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore, in accordance with the terms of the will of H. L. Mencken. Excerpts reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. Copyright © 1964 by Mary Hemingway. Copyright renewed © 1992 by John H. Hemingway, Patrick Hemingway and Gregory Hemingway; extracts from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, published by Jonathan Cape, reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. Excerpts reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961, edited by Carlos Baker. Copyright © 1981 The Ernest Hemingway Foundation, Inc.; reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, and the Hemingway Foreign Rights Trust from Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 edited by Carlos Baker. © The Hemingway Foreign Rights Trust. Excerpt reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from
The Only Thing That Counts: The Ernest Hemingway-Maxwell Perkins Correspondence, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Ernest Hemingway’s letters to Maxwell Perkins: Copyright © 1996 by The Ernest Hemingway Foundation; reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, and the Hemingway Foreign Rights Trust from The Only Thing That Counts: The Ernest Hemingway-Maxwell Perkins Correspondence, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Ernest Hemingway’s letters to Maxwell Perkins: © The Hemingway Foreign Rights Trust. Extracts from Sara Mayfield, Exiles from Paradise: Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald and The Constant Circle: H. L. Mencken and His Friends, and from unpublished documentation held in the Sara Mayfield Collection, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, reprinted by courtesy of Camella Mayfield, Literary Executor. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC: excerpts from Letters on Literature and Politics 1912–1972 by Edmund Wilson, edited by Elena Wilson. Copyright ©1977 by Elena Wilson; excerpt from ‘Weekend at Ellerslie’ from The Shores of Light by Edmund Wilson. Copyright © 1952 by Edmund Wilson. Copyright renewed © 1980 by Helen Miranda Wilson; excerpts from ‘After the War’, ‘France, England, Italy’ and ‘New York’ from The Twenties by Edmund Wilson. Copyright © 1975 by Elena Wilson.

  Every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the author would be glad to hear from them.

  Abbreviations and Notes on Endnotes

  The following abbreviations have been used:

  FSF Francis Scott Fitzgerald

  ZSF Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

  EH Ernest Hemingway

  MP Max Perkins

  PUL Princeton University Library

  1. Collections held in the Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, are identified in the endnotes as follows:

  Zelda Fitzgerald Papers: CO183

  F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers: CO187

  F. Scott Fitzgerald Additional Papers: CO188

  John Biggs Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald Estate Papers: CO628

  Craig House Collection: CO745

  Charles Scribner’s Sons Author Files: CO101

  2. When the author read all Zelda Fitzgerald’s letters in the PUL archives only a few had been published (in Life in Letters and Zelda Fitzgerald: Collected Writings). When she wrote the biography the bulk of those letters were still unpublished. As this book goes to print some letters are being published in Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda. The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, which will alter their status.

  3. The author took the decision to retain the idiosyncratic spelling of both Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald in passages quoted from their writings.

  ‘ZELDA’

  by Helen Dunmore

  At Great Neck one Easter

  were Scott

  Ring Lardner

  and Zelda, who sat

  neck high in catalogues like reading cards

  her hair in curl for

  wild stories, applauded.

  A drink, two drinks and a kiss.

  Scott and Ring both love her –

  gold-headed, sky-high Miss

  Alabama. (The lioness

  with still eyes and no affectations

  doesn’t come into this.)

  Some visitors said she ought

  to do more housework, get herself taught

  to cook.

  Above all, find some silent occupation

  rather than mess up Scott’s vocation.

  In France her barriers were simplified.

  Her husband developed a work ethic:

  film actresses; puritan elegance;

  tipped eyes spilling material

  like fresh Americas. You see

  said Scott they know about work, like me.

  You can’t beat a writer for justifying adultery.

  Zelda

  always wanted to be a dancer

  she said, writhing

  among the gentians that smelled of medicine.

  A dancer in a sweat lather is not beautiful.

  A dancer’s mind can get fixed.

  Give me a wooden floor, a practice dress,

  a sheet of mirrors and hours of labour

  and lie me with my spine to the floor

  supple secure.

  She handed these back too

  with her gold head and her senses.

  She asks for visits. She makes herself hollow

  with tears, dropped in the same cup.

  Here at the edge of her sensations

  there is no chance.

  Evening falls on her Montgomery verandah.

  No cars come by. Her only visitor

  his voice, slender along the telephone wire.

  INTRODUCTION

  Mythical voices: mapping the myth

  A Jazz Age Icon or a Renaissance Woman?

  Paradoxically, Zelda Fitzgerald embraced both definitions yet was imprisoned by neither. Zelda, who arrived with the twentieth century, had an impressive array of untamed talents. She was a powerful painter; an original writer; and a ballerina who began late but achieved substantial success.

  However, it is Zelda’s character which has assumed symbolic status, her life the stuff of myth, her romance with Scott Fitzgerald which has enabled her spectacular rise and emblematic fall. As her creativity and brains were backed by beauty, rebelliousness and a flair for publicity, it is hardly surprising that in terms of her talents the legend makers sold her short.

  Zelda must bear some responsibility. Her childhood escapades caused such intense gossip in Montgomery that myths about her wildness started early. Later she made it easy for mythmakers to prioritize her role as flamboyant flapper rather than hardworking artist. With her help, at least in the early years, mythmakers invented and reinvented Zelda Fitzgerald as American Dream Girl, Romantic Cultural Icon, Golden Girl of the Roaring Twenties and most often as a Southern Belle, relabelled the First American Flapper by her husband Scott Fitzgerald, the quintessential novelist of the Jazz Age, which he named.1 When as a bride Zelda jumped in the Washington Square fountain, danced on tables in public restaurants, performed cartwheels in a New York City hotel lobby, it was not surprising that the media gambolled with her exploits.

  Zelda and Scott flourished as capricious, merciless self-historians writing and rewriting their exploits. They used their stormy partnership as a basis for fiction which subsequently became a form of private communication that allowed fiction to stand as a method of discourse about their marriage. That discourse was then rewoven into their legend.

  Recently myth has likened Zelda to those other twentieth-century icons, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana. With each she shares a defiance of convention, intense vulnerability, doomed beauty, unceasing struggle for a serious identity, short tragic life and quite impossible nature.

  During a dazzling period of American culture, Zelda, as artistic creator and as object of Scott Fitzgerald’s literary creations, spoke for a generation of bright young women. Yet she was out of step with it. Her painting and writing, too, are out of step. Their oddness jolts the reader or viewer. The legend misses that out.

  Her literature and art with their hallucinatory connections between ideas are unsettling: transgressive, like their creator. When I saw her vivid, unpredictable paintings they stirred my imagination, but gave rise to a strange anxiety.

  I looked at a nursing mother with a red blanket, an agonized portrait which flies in the face of acceptable motherhood. The mother has half her head severed while the baby sucks at what looks like the mother’s entrails. Powerful but hardly comforting, it set me off on an untrodden trail to discover Zelda’s overlooked relationship to her daughter Scottie.

  Zelda’s paintings and her writings, like Zelda herself, are enigmatic but it is not their labyrinthine quality alone which skews the legend.

  The way Zelda’s gifts panned out provides a second motive. Our society awards higher status to artists engaged fulltime on a single crea
tive pursuit than to artists engaged on multiple forms of art. Being gifted in three directions – painting, writing, ballet – smacks of dilettantism.2

  That Zelda’s legend is unbalanced is also rooted in how our society rates literature and painting. Generally we credit art produced consistently and continuously, which provides us with a complete body of work by which to make judgements.

  Zelda’s does neither.

  Zelda’s writing is not continuous. She was most productive during two periods: 1929 to 1934, when intermittently hospitalized, and 1940 to 1948, after Scott’s death, until her own. Between those periods Zelda was often ill or prevented from writing. As her biographer I had to ensure these two problems were separated.

  Zelda’s art is not a complete body of work, nor is much of it dated. It lacks the habitual artistic ‘progression’ or linear development by which one can sometimes date paintings. I have therefore, like several art critics, identified paintings by subject or theme.3 I have also managed to match up several paintings with life events or with ideas occupying Zelda’s imagination at a particular time.

  Although her visual art is the most successfully refined of her three gifts, and although she produced paintings continuously from 1925 until the day before her death in 1948, many have been lost, burnt or otherwise destroyed. Fire and destruction remain two significant linked themes in Zelda’s life.