Z by Therese Anne Fowler
St. Martin’s • $25.99 • ISBN 9781250028655
Published March 26, 2013
Why are we so obsessed with the writers of the ’20s and ’30s? Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris—it seems we can’t get enough of our darling drunk writers of the Jazz Age.
This is just one of the few things I chatted about with Therese Anne Fowler, author of the upcoming Zelda Fitzgerald novel, Z, for an interview for the April issue of BookPage. Fowler, who started working on Z before our Jazz Age resurgence, called it “radio waves in the zeitgeist.”
If you’re looking for dishy tales of crazy Zelda and drunken Scott, this isn’t your book. You get some of that, certainly, but Fowler, through meticulous research, has crafted a Zelda you might not expect: She’s complex, confused, ambitious, impulsive—and naive. You’ll have to wait till April to hear more!
To tide you over, here’s an excerpt from a contentious moment between Scott and Zelda in the early 1920s:
Scott walked in just as I was hanging up the phone.
I said, “Griffith had his secretary phone to say you just don’t have what it takes for the job. Looks like you’re out of luck.”
He stripped off his gloves nonchalantly, then his coat, then let all of it drop to the floor behind him. His hat remained on his head. “You should choose your pronouns more carefully,” he said. His voice was loose. “We are out of lucky. We’re ruined, in fact.”
“What are you saying? You’re drunk.”
“I’m drunk, and we’re broke. Aren’t pronouns fun?” Then he pulled his pockets inside out for effect. “I can’t even buy us lunch.”
“Go to the bank, then.”
“No, I mean we have no money at all. Not in my pockets, not in my wallet, not in the bank. In fact, I had to borrow to pay for your coat.”
“Borrow from who?”
“The Bank of Scribner, in this case, although sometimes I use the Bank of Ober.”
I was confused. “Max and Harold lend you money?”
“Against royalties, or future earnings—it’s all money I’m going to get eventually; just, eventually doesn’t always arrive as quickly as I need it to.”
I went to the closet, pulled the coat from its hanger, and shoved it at him. “Send it back!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He plopped down on the sofa. “You look fantastic in this coat. In fact, I think you should take off everything you’re wearing and then put the coat on.” His eyelids were drooping as he said this, and then they closed.
I watched him for a moment, thinking he’d fallen asleep. Then, without opening his eyes he said, “Don’t hate me. I’m sorry. It’s all for you.”
—
Scott went on the wagon and finished his novel, The Beautiful and Damned, a story of a young society couple so indolent and overindulgent that they ruin themselves. His self-discipline impressed me, so much so that I was pregnant by February.
Are you looking forward to Z?
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