Save Me The Waltz (Vintage Classics)

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She chose Max Perkins, her husband’s own editor, writing to him, “Scott completely being absorbed in his own [novel] has not seen it, so I am completely in the dark as to its possible merits but naturally terribly anxious that you should like it.”

More recently, it has been reissued by Handheld Press. However, interest in Zelda’s writing and life has only really surged since the 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Several novels have been based on her life. Struggling first against the excesses of her own Roaring Twenties lifestyle and then against severe mental illness, Zelda never achieved the critical success of her husband nor had the chance to fully develop her skills. According to her daughter Frances (Scottie) Fitzgerald:Save Me the Waltz was republished by Southern Illinois Press in 1967 (it required some 550 spelling and grammar corrections), and then again by the University of Alabama in 1991 in The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald. It was far from her first foray into writing fiction, but it was the first time she had ever written anything and sent it to a publisher without showing it to her husband beforehand. Forty years after its publication, Zelda's biographer Nancy Milford speculated in 1970 that F. Scott Fitzgerald extensively rewrote Zelda's novel prior to publication. [11] This supposition was echoed by later biographers. [12] However, scholarly examinations of Zelda's earlier drafts of Save Me the Waltz and the published version disproved this speculation. [13] Nearly every revision was by Zelda and, contrary to Milford's biography, her husband did not rewrite the manuscript. [14] Bruccoli, Matthew J. (July 2002) [1981], Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (2nd rev.ed.), Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, ISBN 978-1-57003-455-8 , retrieved January 1, 2023– via Internet Archive One of the great literary curios of the twentieth century Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which strangely parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on Scott Fitzgerald's life and work. In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story: the confessional of a famous glamour girl of the affluent 1920s and an aspiring ballerina which captures the spirit of an era.

It was my mother’s misfortune to have been born with the ability to write, to dance, and to paint, and then never to have acquired the discipline to make her talent work for, rather than against, her.”In the autumn of 1929, she was offered a salaried position with the San Carlo Opera Ballet Company in Naples, dancing a solo role initially in Aida with more solos to follow during the season, but had to decline the offer as she was not mentally capable of fulfilling the demanding contract. The [novel's poor sales] won't be encouraging to you, and I have not liked to ask whether you were writing any more because of the fact, but I do think the last part of that book, in particular, was very fine; and if we [both Perkins and Zelda] had not been in the depths of depression, the result would have been quite different."

I glad[ly] submit to anything you want about the book or anything else…However, I would like you to thoroughly understand that my revision will be made on an aesthetic basis: that the other material which I will select is nevertheless legitimate stuff that has cost me a pretty emotional penny to amass and which I intend to use when I can get the tranquility of spirit necessary to write the story of myself versus myself.” Alabama comes of age in the Deep South, in a house with an affectionate mother, Millie, and a distant father, Judge Austin Beggs, along with two older sisters Joan and Dixie. Amidst the tensions in her house, Alabama grows up a rebellious teenage daughter, albeit still the favorite. Despite disapproval, Alabama marries the charismatic David Knight, an aspiring artist based on F. Scott Fitzgerald. One of the most emotionally powerful moments in the novel is when they first meet and Knight carves into the door “David, David, David, Knight, Knight, Knight, and Miss Alabama Nobody.” They move to New York, and between their extravagant social gatherings and David’s painting, Alabama gives birth to their only daughter, Bonnie. Mizener, Arthur (1951), The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin– via Internet Archive

The search for a creative outlet

Scott, on the other hand, didn’t appreciate Zelda doing the same thing. While his side of the correspondence has been lost, he must have sent Zelda a curt reply to her explanatory letter, because, in her next letter to him, Zelda wrote: Fitzgerald’s semi-autobiographical novel is a wonderfully detailed account of a couple, who despite their misgivings and fights, loved each other greatly. This account, albeit partly fictional, of the Fitzgeralds’ marriage, portrays the people behind the larger-than-life legends and the emotional truth of their lives. It wasn’t the first time that the lines between fact and fiction had become blurred. Scott, too, often conflated fantasy and reality in his novels: he once said to Malcolm Crowley, “Sometimes I don’t know whether Zelda isn’t a character that I created myself.”

Zelda did start another novel, Caesar’s Things, and worked on it intermittently for the rest of her life. It never came to anything. She also turned to scriptwriting and attempted to produce a play called Scandalabra, described as a fantasy farce in a prologue and three acts.

An Italian critic comes to see Alabama’s classes and offers her a solo role at the Opera in Naples, on a modest salary. At first, Alabama dismisses the idea, knowing she could not move Bonnie to a new school and that David would not follow her. After some thought however, she decides to take the offer and go to Naples, leaving her family behind. This is the main difference between Alabama’s story and Zelda’s: Zelda Fitzgerald had also learned ballet as an adult, and received this same offer. The author, however, refused. There have also been more scholarly explorations of Zelda’s work, including The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald by Deborah Pike, which takes Zelda out of her husband’s shadow and places her work alongside other female writers and painters of the time such as Leonora Carrington. At Phipps Clinic, Zelda developed a bond with Dr. Mildred Squires, a female resident. [2] Toward the end of February, she shared fragments of her inchoate novel with Squires, who wrote to Scott that the unfinished novel was vivid and had charm. [21] Zelda wrote to Scott from the hospital, "I am proud of my novel, but I can hardly restrain myself enough to get it written. You will like it—It is distinctly École Fitzgerald, though more ecstatic than yours—perhaps too much so." [22] Zelda wrote diligently each day and finished the novel on March 9. She sent the unaltered manuscript to Scott's gifted editor, Maxwell Perkins, at Scribner's. [23]