Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is the most emotional and thought-provoking book I've read this year, perhaps ever. It's because of this that I can only review this book in terms of how I view Zelda's relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Z is Biographical Fiction based on the couple's own writings and the accounts of those around them. In this novel, we see a woman's life laid open, her soul stripped bare.
To put it bluntly, Zelda was a remarkably talented woman who had more ambition than her philandering, alcoholic, money squandering husband's fragile ego could withstand. Scott was both insecure and jealous of Zelda's talents. This shines through more than any other aspect of their story.
Scott wanted to keep Zelda in a gilded cage and use both her and the exploits he fashioned around their lives to create his stories. His work was slow coming and the praise he received for it he found insufficient. These feelings of inadequacy, coupled with his drunken romps with the artificially macho, male chauvinist, Hemmingway undermined what little home life he had left.
Zelda was a talented dancer, painter, and writer. Her downfall was her unending love for the man who squashed her dreams and took credit for her work. F. Scott gave no credit to Zelda for the writing she put into his books and had her works published under his own name. Zelda Fitzgerald wrote for Scott awhile he wrote for Hemmingway.
The conclusion I draw from Zelda's story is that she wasn't mentally ill, just exhausted from years of abuse and neglect. Locked away in mental hospitals, where she underwent "treatments" of shock, insulin, and mind-altering drugs in order to bring her under the subjugation of male authoritarianism. In short, F. Scott Fitzgerald shackled his wife to keep her out of the way, so he could carry on with his affairs and booze.
This book could be just as fittingly titled,
Zelda S. Fitzgerald, A Life of Talent, Heartache, and Subjugation.
In conclusion, Z leaves me feeling that Zelda Fitzgerald should be revered as a woman before her time and a remarkable talent in her own right.
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