"Fitzgerald's daughter observed that 'money and alcohol' were the great adversaries that he battled all his days" (qtd. in Grossman). Fitzgerald described the summer of 1925 as "1000 parties and no work" (qtd in Mizener 196). During this time, his drinking had increased, he began to be drunk for durations of ten days, and when he'd sober up, he would have no idea of how he had gotten where he was or where he had been (Mizener 196). His drinking was easy to mock and Hemingway did so in The Torrents of Springs: "It was at this point in the story, reader, that Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald came to our home one afternoon, and after remaining for quite a while suddenly sat down in the fireplace and would not (or was it could not, reader?) get up and let the fire burn something else so as to keep the room warm." (qtd. in Mizener 196). At some time, "Fitzgerald reached a stage that was difficult for himself as well as other, and like Dick Diver, he began to find himself excluded not only from parties but from hotels and other public place" (Mizener 205). Between 1926 and 1927, Fitzgerald did not write a single story. As usual, this lack of work caused him to be depressed, only this time it was not just because of his failure to write serious fiction, but also because he felt that he was steadily deteriorating (Mizener 222).

This failure, he believed he was victim of, is well represented when he wrote to Perkins "in a small way I was an original" (qtd. In Mizener 312). Mizener said of Fitzgerald that "just as his life illuminated his novels, so his work does his life" (1). This statement is true for Fitzgerald. As Leslie Field noted, "long before his own actual crack-up [which led him to death], he dreamed it, he prophesied it in all his stories and novels" (71-72). Fitzgerald had had the ability to remember precise feeling which belonged to his experiences as he lived it (Mizener 115). And with such capability, he wrote what he understood of life, usually writing about the themes which were also part of his own life, the pursuit of success, the authority of money, the desire to recapture the past, the extravagant way of living of his time. He showed us how all these things can be destructive. It is because these themes are still so close to our society that F. Scott Fitzgerald became one of the best writers of the 20th century. When we go back to the fact that Fitzgerald believed he had failed at writing, this cannot be anything but wrong. Today we know better, but Fitzgerald did not live to enjoy our knowledge. As Vincent Benet wrote in 1941, "You can take off your hats, now, gentleman, and I think perhaps you had better. This is not a legend, this is a reputation-and seen in perspective, it may well be one of the most secure reputations of our time" (qtd. in Mizener 338).

However, when Fitzgerald's novel was a success overnight, Zelda married him a week later. Fitzgerald had nearly, as the main character in The Great Gatsby did, lost his girl because he had no money (Mizener 190-91). Zelda's voice just like Daisy's in the same novel had been "full of money" (Fitzgerald 120)

"In the summer of 1939, in spite of his increasing bitterness and his broken health, Fitzgerald was once again-as had so often been the case during his lifetime able to regain control of himself"(Greenfeld 121). He pleaded Sheilah to come back to him, which she did. He cut down on his drinking and began to think seriously of his novel, which was to be his last, The Last Tycoon (Greenfeld 121). A novel of Hollywood, Mizener noted it would have involved "everything [Fitzgerald] found in the life of the rich....-the opportunity their life offers for the realization appurtenances, the immorality of its brutal acquisition, and above all, the crucial moral choice with which it confronts those who live it" (142). "Fitzgerald was deep in the novel [that could have been his way to redemption], living in it, and it made him happ

Some common words found in the essay are:
Dick Diver, Scott Fitzgerald's, Max Perkins, Rosalind Amory, Maurice Flynn, Keillor Fitzgerald, Amory Blaine, Hollywood Mizener, John Aldridge, Leslie Field, qtd mizener, dick diver, tender night, mizener 196, money fitzgerald, fitzgerald despised rich, wrote perkins, beautiful damned, 196 drinking, hollywood mizener, fitzgerald despised, francis scott key, scott key fitzgerald, mizener 196 drinking, qtd mizener 196,
Approximate Word count = 2983
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)