First published 2015
F. Scott Fitzgerald arrives at the MGM studio lot in 1937, his literary glory days behind him. His health is failing, his wife Zelda remains in a mental institution, and his bank account sits nearly empty. He needs this screenwriting job to survive. As Fitzgerald navigates the strange world of Hollywood, he falls for Sheilah Graham, a sharp-tongued gossip columnist who becomes his companion and confidante. Between studio meetings and script revisions, he tries to write his final novel, The Last Tycoon, while maintaining some connection to his absent wife and their daughter Scottie. The Hollywood crowd surrounds him with familiar faces like Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, and Humphrey Bogart, yet Fitzgerald remains isolated in his struggle to rebuild a career and hold together what remains of his fractured life. O'Nan follows these last three years as Fitzgerald fights to find meaning and purpose when everything he once valued has crumbled.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, biographical-fiction
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, fall-from-grace
Setting: MGM Studio, Hollywood
Period: 1937
306 pages · Kindle Edition · Allen & Unwin
Content warnings: mental-illness