Taylor presents the most thorough and uncensored chronicle yet of the tragic symbiosis between Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald. Blond, striking, and reckless, both were also selfish, gifted, and doomed. A veritable dervish, well-born Alabaman Zelda indulged in outrageous behavior that won her legions of admirers. Undisciplined and clueless about real life yet possessed of a lively, creative intelligence, she intended to marry wealth but instead chose a poor, artistically ambitious Minnesotan. As Taylor follows the drunk, disorderly couple and their stoic, neglected daughter through their unsettled and unsettling lives, she traces the sad decline of Zelda's mental health and documents the extensive, unauthorized use Scott made of her scintillating letters and diaries. Not only did he steal from her, he viciously suppressed her efforts to write. There is no question that these betrayals exacerbated Zelda's illness, just as it's obvious that her suffering helped drive Scott to an early death. Fluent, deeply felt, and involving, Taylor's astute double portrait pushes beyond the particulars of one mutually destructive marriage to illuminate the inherent conflict between art and life. Donna Seaman

Much has been written about the celebrity marriage of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre. Taylor, a Fulbright scholar, cultural historian, and former professor, weighs in with a well-written, comprehensive book that explores the "folie ? deux that bound them together and sustained them both, even as it destroyed them." Her main focus is Zelda's youthful resolve and, later, her inability to build an identity for herself, and she also considers the reckless couple's mutual denigrations and Scott's constant use of Zelda as material. Taylor begins the tale in Montgomery, AL, then proceeds to trace the couple from celebrity in 1920s New York and Paris to Zelda's hospitalizations and Scott's incurable alcoholism. Taylor charts this complex story of frenetic spiritual squalor and mutual doom with curiosity and insight. His work does not replace the standard biographies but is a valuable complement. Scott Hightower, Fordham Univ., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

This well-written, carefully researched biography focuses more on Zelda than most earlier studies do. In this sense, it is directly comparable to Nancy Milford's landmark biography Zelda (CH, Dec'70). Taylor's book compares favorably to Milford's in the quality of its research, the felicity of its style, and the riveting nature of the story it tells, though Taylor's assertion that Milford's Zelda is "an engaging but evasive book that poses as many questions as it answers" is arguable. Nonetheless, the present volume is both scholarly and readable, "drawing on previously suppressed material, including crucial medical records" and bringing an intense engagement and empathy to Zelda. Taylor's fundamental purpose is to show that despite her many talents, her meteoric, flamboyant life, her tragic descent into madness, and her premature death, "the most powerful impediment" facing Zelda was that "she was Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald" and was treated primarily as an adjunct to her husband, a reality that continued after their deaths. Taylor's fine book goes a long way toward rectifying this imbalance. Recommended for all academic and public libraries, the book includes photographs and notes as well as bibliography and index. B. H. Leeds Central Connecticut State University

In this absorbing yet ultimately disappointing account of the legendary duo, Kendall, a cultural historian and former university professor, recounts the tragically dysfunctional marriage of two gifted yet mentally unstable individuals. The story is familiar: Scott and Zelda, "Manhattan's most sought-after couple, in demand at chic gatherings, parties and theatre openings" in the mid-1920s, never stopped partying. But by the late '20s, it was clear that Zelda suffered from mental illness and that Scott's drinking had become "desperate." Scott languished in the wake of The Great Gatsby, "borrowed" heavily from his wife's notebooks and believed that he alone (and not Zelda, whose novel, Save Me the Waltz, revealed unattractive truths about their marriage) had the right to tell their story feeding her illness. After her total mental collapse in 1930, she stayed in a series of sanitaria until her death in a fire in 1948. Kendall draws upon "previously undisclosed information"; her most noteworthy contribution is her chilling documentation of Zelda's mental health and treatment by elite doctors with experimental approaches to schizophrenia in the 1930s and '40s including electro-convulsive therapy and injections of horse blood. Though it's the first study of the Fitzgeralds that treats Zelda as equal subject matter, it lacks a cogent context and the focus Kendall might have achieved had she studied Zelda alone (as a needed update to Nancy Milford's Zelda, 1970). Zelda, Kendall claims, "wanted... equal footing and an identity apart from her famous husband," but was "thwarted in that goal by a lack of direction." Despite abundant material, this book suffers a similar ailment. 16 pages b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Betsy Nolan. (On-sale Aug. 28) Forecast: A five-city author tour, radio interviews and ample advertising may initially revive interest in the Fitzgeralds, but don't expect big ongoing sales. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A joint biography of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald by cultural historian Taylor, who dwells on the disintegration of their marriage and Zelda's slow descent into madness. To this day, the Fitzgeralds remain the most enduring icons of Jazz Age insouciance. They were married in 1920, only after the social-climbing Scott had become rich and famous with the success of This Side of Paradise, and they spent a great part of the next decade in France. There, Scott wrote, drank, and managed to alienate most of his friends with his alcoholic rages. Zelda studied ballet, gave birth to her only child, and gradually withdrew into a private world. Although Zelda was undoubtedly schizophrenic (she had shown signs of madness from an early age), Taylor maintains that her inability to put up with Scott's alcoholism and her own frustrated artistic impulses (she could well have been a professional dancer, and she was a good writer as well) pushed her over the edge sooner than she would have gone on her own. Scott returned, broke, to the US during the Depression and became a hack writer in Hollywood, while Zelda was committed to an asylum. They both died in their 40s. Nothing new here, but a decently told account all the same. Author tour