Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Meyers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1994

A full-scale portrait of one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century provides an in-depth critical analysis of Fitzgerald's life, writings, and the relationship between them. National ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Meyers's compulsively readable, marvelously vivid biography of Jazz Age novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) uncovers a wealth of new details that cumulatively bring into focus a tragic figure torn between the struggle for artistic integrity and the desire to live up to his glamorous image. Biographer of Hemingway, Poe and D. H. Lawrence, Meyers is especially adept at discussing Fitzgerald's alcoholism, which alienated his friends; the devastating impact of his wife Zelda's three mental breakdowns and her plunge into madness; and Fitzgerald's well-intentioned but misguided parenting of their daughter Scottie whom he raised virtually on his own. Meyers provides much new material on Fitzgerald's numerous love affairs, on his friendships with Edmund Wilson, Hemingway and others, on his formative years at a Catholic boarding school and on his academic disaster at Princeton. He is also insightful in ferreting out links between Fitzgerald's "extremely autobiographical" fiction and his chaotic life. Photos. BOMC alternate; QPB selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Fitzgerald once observed that "there are no second acts in American lives"--too bad, he could have used one. Meyers's often brutally honest portrait of the short, unhappy lives of Scott and Zelda is a disturbing inventory of excess and squandor. Myers presents his subjects as self-centered and irresponsible scamps who get their comeuppance manyfold, with Scott corrupting his great talent with alcohol and second-rate work hacked out for easy money and Zelda freefalling into madness. As in his many other fine biographies (e.g., Edgar Allan Poe , LJ 7/92), Meyers adds a portion of literary criticism by dissecting Fitzgerald's major writings in detail. Though it is repetitive in spots, Meyers scores another hit with this work--the most important book on Fitzgerald in 20 years. Coupled with Cambridge University Press's outstanding series of definitive editions of Scott's novels, this biography may spark a new perspective on Fitzgerald. Highly recommended. BOMC alternate; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/93.
- Michael Rogers, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (April 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060190361
• ISBN-13: 978-0060190361
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,659,409 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Meyers' biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, November 2, 2001

By 

K. D Kirk "workingpants" (Fairfax, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scott Fitzgerald (Paperback)

I found Jeffrey's Meyers' biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald dismaying. Not that Meyers' doesn't write well (he does), or capture the essence of Fitzgerald's dissipation, but the book seemed a deliberate hack job. It is largely a continuous stream of references to Fitzgerald's obstinacy, egotism, inferiority, outrageousness, drunkenness and worse. I don't know where anyone got the idea that Meyers' wrote with any compassion in this biography. This work only makes Fitzgerald look pathetic. Of course, in many ways he was...but I see no scholarly effort to recognize the quality and enduring value of much of his work. While they pull few punches themselves, I'd recommend Mizener's The Far Side of Paradise, and Bruccoli's Some Sort of Epic Grandeur for a more balanced perspective.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What Ruined Scott, December 3, 2010

By 

Eric Maroney (Trumansburg, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography (Hardcover)

Since his death at 44 in 1940, people have speculated both why Scott Fitzgerald died so young, why he failed to live up to the massive talent he displayed in writing The Great Gatsby, and fundamentally, how it could have been different.

Reading Jeffrey Myers biography Scott Fitzgerald, it becomes apparent that it is impossible to separate all the strands that ruined Scott. He drank, and was not the kind of drinker who could function. His upbringing did little to prepare him for adulthood and its responsibilities. His marriage to Zelda was disastrous to his health and creativity and further propelled his drinking (although he did drink too much before he met her.)

But his profligate lifestyle would have been impossible without money, and he earned this not from his novels or short literary fiction, but from popular writing in magazines like the Saturday Evening Post. A story in the Post, which in the 20s had a circulation of three million, could earn him three to four thousand dollars a story. He made nearly forty-thousand dollars a year, four or five times the amount of an average American family. He felt he needed this money, to keep Zelda in luxury, and to present a picture of himself to the world as the successful artist.

But this dedication to hack writing at the expense of other work, made his art suffer and ultimately diminished him as a writer. Without those massive fees in the 1920s the Fitzgerald juggernaut would have been more difficult to keep moving at its dangerous speed. It might have even saved him.

1.0 out of 5 stars A profound disappointment, October 11, 2002

By 

Trina T. Brown - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography (Hardcover)

While a good biography should give us insight into what a person was like, Meyers apparently thinks himself qualified to tell us what Fitzgerald was thinking and feeling throughout his life, and those mind-reading attempts ring false.

Fitzgerald once said that all the characters in his novels were based on him. Meyers seems to believe the reverse - that Fitzgerald's personality can be illustrated almost entirely by the characters in his novels. Thus, Meyers provides the reader with a shallow caricature of Fitzgerald - where all his faults are enhanced and the real person underneath is passed over completely.

For a better glimpse of the person F. Scott Fitzgerald was, I strongly recommend F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters.