In my attempts to learn about F Scott Fitzgerald I came across this book written by his lover Sheilah Graham whom he was involved with during the last years of his life. While his wife Zelda languished in the mental asylum that would lead to her death in a fire, FSF was slipping into an alcoholic stupor that eventually claimed him. This is essentially the life story of Sheilah Graham who was born into poverty on London's East end as Lily Sheil. Had she continued on the trajectory set by her mother's example, she may never have aspired to be more than an illiterate maid. Her looks proved to be her saving grace as her appearance paved the way for her to obtain bigger and better opportunities. Her beauty attracted the attention of more than one well to do gentlemen who vied for her hand in marriage. She opted to reject the offer of an overweight millionaire to marry a financially comfortable military hero and entreprenuer. The marriage lifted her from the poverty stricken path she was born into and saved her from the fate befitting a scullery maid. She was able to pursue a life on the stage while keeping her marriage a secret thinking that it was better for her image if she was presumed to be single. As her showbiz life improved her social standing and put her into touch with glitzy entertainment industry types, she eventually fell into a gossip writing gig that I can best summarize as the poor man's Louella Parsons. Without a writing background and with virtually no education, she resorted to pithy put downs in her column that pissed a lot of people off. During this time, she met FSF at a party on the grounds of the fabled Garden of Allah property that was second home to many Hollywood notables from Marilyn Monroe to Frank Sinatra et al. The adorable bungalows were built on the grounds of what had once been silent screen star Allah Nazimova's private residence during Hollywood's infancy. FSF was living in a rented bungalow while working at MGM where he had been hired to lend his talent to a number of projects, a rewrite of the Gone with the Wind screenplay among them. The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise and Tender is the Night had catapulted FSF to global notoriety as the world fawned over him and his wife Zelda. They were portrayed to represent and embody the Jazz Age as their larger than life media personalities overshadowed their soul and knocked them off their pedestal. The pressures of fame and life at the top proved to be too much for FSF and Zelda to sustain as evidenced by her mental unraveling and his failure to transition from bestselling author to the second phase of his career. When he met Sheilah at a cocktail party, he was 40 years old with a wife in an asylum and an estranged teenage daughter away at school. His relationship with Sheilah was the best thing he had going for him but was doomed from the beginning in many ways. His obligations to Zelda prevented him from ever being able to marry Sheilah and legitimatize their union because he had one foot mired in the past at all times. I cringed while reading about FSF's drunken bombastic binges where he would demand special treatment from an unsuspecting waitress or the equivalent, "Don't you know who I am?", he would sway and shout. In a town where you're only as good as your last hit, his fall from the A list had severely affected his Q score. He took on the task of procuring Sheilah's education and transformed her from a back country Cockney lass into a well bred, well read woman of the world. Undertakings such as this were typical of FSF on one spectrum just as he was prone to hold Sheilah at gunpoint on the polar opposite end. He was every inch an alcoholic or inebriate as he depended on the vice as an ill fated coping mechanism to deal with the reality of his fall from glory and failure to navigate a professional niche in a changing creative marketplace. My eyes were glued to the pages as I reacted audibly much to the chagrin of people in my surroundings. I felt as if I had a front row seat at a public lynching. Watching the magic that was FSF end up a hackneyed has been cliche was incredibly painful to witness through Sheilah's engaging words. The film of the same name is an accurate portrayal of the book's chapters that deal with FSF.
