2003, ISBN: 9781559706889

According to legend, Zelda Fitzgerald was the Golden Girl of the Roaring Twenties, the archetypal southern belle who became "the fist American flapper" in the words of her husband, F. Sco… Mehr…

According to legend, Zelda Fitzgerald was the Golden Girl of the Roaring Twenties, the archetypal southern belle who became "the fist American flapper" in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the quintessential novelist of the period. But the legend has long obscured the real woman. Five years in the making, this powerful biography presents a far more complex and controversial portrait both of Zelda and of the Fitzgeralds' marriage. The Zelda Sally Cline reveals was a serious artist: a painter of disturbing vision, a talented dancer, and a dazzlingly original writer. Unsatisfied with the identities Scott allowed her--of glamorous wife and flapper incarnate--yet dependent on him, she struggled to define herself and make her creative mark within the confines of their dysfunctional love. Quoting extensively from Zelda's highly autobiographical writings, Sally Cline brings us her authentic voice. In doing so, she provides a cogent, convincing context to Zelda's tragedy.-The first full-lengh study of Zelda's life allowed by the Fitzgerald family and Estate since Nancy Milford's Zelda published in 1970.-Taps unpublished correspondence with Zelda's daughter, mother, and friends, as well as medical records and interviews.-Features such cultural luminaries as Ernest Hemingway, Edmund Wilson, H. L. Mencken, John dos Passos, Maxwell Perkins, Dorothy Parker, and many of the models for the protgonists in Scott's and Zelda's fiction.-A traveling exhibition of Zelda's paintings is currently touring the country. It will open in Charleston, South Carolina, in January 2003 and move to Long Island from May 15 through October 2003.-Places special emphasis on the art Zeldaproduced up to the day before her death in order to create a more rounded portrait of her personality and achievement. Media ><