The seminal biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Far Side of Paradise was the first ever biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, widely acclaimed as a sensitive, scholarly appraisal of the writer’s life and work. With this revised edition, updated to include new information that has since surfaced, Arthur Mizener has created a definitive portrait of Fitzgerald – the man, his work, and his exciting, globe-trotting life.
He explores his childhood and formative years at Princeton University, as well as his chaotic marriage to Zelda Sayre and the years they spent in Paris together with writers and artists like Hemingway and Picasso. After becoming a chronicler of the ‘flapper age’ in the 1920s, Fitzgerald struggled with alcoholism and despair following his wife’s diagnosis as a schizophrenic. In this fascinating biography, Mizener delves into the elements of Fitzgerald’s own life that influenced The Great Gatsby, as well as his other acclaimed novels.