Was Scott Fitzgerald's wife Zelda mad, bad, the inspiration for Gatsby's Daisy or just misunderstood?

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Remembered as a profligate shrew who drove her husband to drink before going insane - a new book denies decades old stories as an inaccurate portrait of Zelda Fitzgerald.
A 'persistent, damning mischaracterisation that needs undoing' states the author, Therese Anne Fowler, who argues that not only was the spoiled wife of Great Gatsby author, F. Scott Fitzgerald sane, she was also devoted to her husband.
Fowler, who began Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald wondering whether she really wanted to spend a year in the company of a 'hyperactive madwoman', says she soon discovered that almost everything she had ever heard about the socialite was wrong.

Outrageous: Both Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald achieved fame and fortune young but burned out quickly

Diagnosed with schizophrenia in her 30s, Zelda spent her twilight years in a number of mental institutions, eventually dying in a North Carolina asylum aged just 48.
Was she really insane? Not so, says Fowler, who argues that in the 1930s, 'schizophrenia' was a catch-all term applied to a range of emotional difficulties.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, she adds: 'It was often applied to women who suffered from depression or exhaustion brought on by impossible circumstances.

 'Zelda did suffer from some mental health crises - depression, primarily - and was an uninhibited, uncensored woman who didn't always think before she acted but she wasn't crazy. ... 'Unwise? Sometimes. Insane? No.'

Fowler also crushes the myth that The Great Gatsby's Daisy Buchanan is synonymous with Zelda, instead arguing that although there are commonalities and F. Scott borrowed heavily from Zelda's diaries, the two were not the same.

Tragic: Both Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald died young, although their daughter had a long, happy life

 

Fame: The Great Gatsby painted a decadent picture of 1920s New York and made F. Scott Fitzgerald's name

Born in 1900, Zelda was the youngest daughter of Alabama Supreme Court Justice, Anthony Sayre and his wife, Minnie Machen Sayre. She met her future husband at a dance in 1918 but was told not to get involved with him by her parents who thought the young F. Scott Fitzgerald entirely unsuitable.
Defying her parents, Zelda continued to see F. Scott and the couple married just before her 20th birthday. The pair left to live in New York, the setting for many of Fitzgerald's most famous novels, and at the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, a glitteringly decadent place to be.

The 1920s was the beginning of a social revolution, which saw women emerge from the home and join men in bars and nightclubs unchaperoned and unfettered by the mores of the Victorian era. Women smoking and drinking became a common sight, as did seeing them dance with abandon and engaging in casual relationships. Even skirts got shorter, with the austere full length skirts and high necked blouses of wartime giving way to sparkling, beaded flapper dresses.

The older generation were scandalised but for Zelda and her new husband, it was just what the doctor ordered.

Decadent: The glittering world of The Great Gatsby will be brought back to life in Baz Lurhman's 2013 film

Scandalous: The behaviour of young flappers such as these was viewed with horror by the older generation

They quickly became doyennes of the New York social scene but it was not enough for Fitzgerald, who did not want merely to be famous, but rich and brilliant as well.
For her part, says Fowler, Zelda was desperate for him to succeed in every way.
After their daughter, Scottie, was born in 1921, the pair moved to France, so Fitzgerald could concentrate on his writing.

Although the pair enjoyed some success during this period, the Fitzgeralds' peripatetic lifestyle and passionate marriage began to take its toll. By this point, Zelda had begun her own literary career, penning a semi-autobiographical novel called Save Me the Waltz, which lifted the lid on her rocky marriage.

F. Scott was furious, saying their life together was 'his material'. He was also drinking heavily, which led to increasingly violent rows. It was now, says Therese, that both their lives began to spiral inexorably out of control.

Estranged through the later years of their marriage, F. Scott spent his twilight years in Hollywood attempting to forge a career in screen writing and pursuing an affair with movie columnist, Sheilah Graham.

He died, aged 44, of a heart attack in 1940. He had not seen his wife, who outlived him by eight years, for more than 18 months.
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler is published on the 11th April by Hodder & Stoughton.