11 APRIL, 2013

‘A brilliant example of what biographical fiction can be. Read it, read it, read it.’

Daily Mail

A novel of the woman dubbed ‘The First Flapper’   – Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald – wife and muse to F Scott Fitzgerald.  Set against the glamorous backdrop of The Roaring Twenties, Z is the story of the golden couple who had it all, but who weren’t destined for a happy ending.

Before F. Scott Fitzgerald was a literary darling, before he’d even begun to imagine The Great Gatsby or Benjamin Button, he was a young WWI army lieutenant who fell hard for a spirited Southern belle named Zelda Sayre.The life he and Zelda would lead together in New York, Long Island, Paris, Hollywood and the French Riviera made them legends, even in their own time.

Set amidst the glamour of the Jazz Age and The Lost Generation’s vivid world abroad, Z vividly brings Zelda and Scott’s romantic, tumultuous, extraordinary journey to life.

‘Sometimes’, said Scott, ‘I don’t know whether Zelda and I are real or whether we are characters from one of my own novels.’

Zelda was the embodiment of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. She was vibrant, headstrong, complicated and misjudged.Z is the irresistibly rich, romantic and tumultuous story of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, set in seductive settings. Filled with larger-than-life characters such as Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy and Gertrude Stein, we watch the evolution of this iconic woman as she lived large and ached to find her own identity while fighting her own demons.

PRAISE FOR

Z

Top 10 New York Times bestseller

‘Finely researched, entertaining and very plausible.’ Vogue UK

‘A thrilling read.’ Stylist.co.uk

‘Rehabilitating Zelda, the original It Girl’ Sunday Telegraph (http://goo.gl/qbPML)

‘A victim of a persistent, damning mischaracterisation’ Daily Mail (http://goo.gl/S0KIF)

‘Narrated by Fowler’s imagined voice of Zelda Fitzgerald, this is both a balanced view of events and a touching and ultimately tragic love story of Zelda and her husband, F Scott Fitzgerald. Like much of their life, reality played like an F Scott Fitzgerald novel – full of glamour, alcohol and bad behaviour. An engrossing read of celebrity life.’ Bookbag *****

‘In her new novel Z, Fowler draws a compellingly complete portrait of that other Paris (and New York and St. Paul and Long Island) wife: mother, painter, writer, flapper, feminist Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald.’ USA Today

‘A gorgeously rendered piece of literary entertainment, not a biography but rather a love story set in the Jazz Age.’ New York Daily News

‘Zips along addictively and exposes the dark side of artistic ambition.’ EW

‘Zelda’s moment’ The Wall Street Journal (http://goo.gl/tdOPS)

‘The novel captures the playful, deeply loving, sexy relationship between the young Fitzgeralds’ Huffington Post

‘What Fowler so masterfully achieves in Z is a thoughtful portrait of a woman who might not have been as ‘crazy’ as we all had been led to believe, but one who was constantly disregarded by a jealous and narcissistic husband.’ Book Reporter

‘Z is a fictional account of Zelda Fitzgerald’s life – giving voice to the determined, intelligent and vibrant woman who struggled to find her identity in the shadow of her husband, whose demons challenged them both with heartbreaking consequences. An unforgettable read’ Australian Woman’s Weekly

‘Z is both an acute observation of the Jazz Age and its legacy, and a powerful portrait of a mind’s torture as it becomes fatally at odds with its environment.’ Sydney Morning Herald (http://bit.ly/10vsHV1)

Mention in the New Yorker ‘Page turner’ culture blog (http://goo.gl/Q5fEk)

Selected by the Oprah magazine as one of the books to read, April 2013.

Named as one of the most anticipated books of 2013 by Huffington Post, Flavorwire, Publishers Marketplace

Selected by The Australian as one of their ‘Books to read in 2013’

‘Zelda in quotes’

On giving birth to Scottie: ‘I hope it’s beautiful and a fool – a beautiful little fool ‘ – a line that would find its way into The Great Gatsby

‘Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.’

‘I don’t want to live, I want to love first and live incidentally.’

‘She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring.’

About Therese Anne Fowler:

Therese Anne Fowler (photo courtesy of Elena Seibert)

Therese has a BA in sociology/cultural anthropology  and an MFA in creative writing.  her work has won honours from the Faulkner Society and Thomas Wolfe Fiction prize competitions.  She was an editorial assistant and taught undergraduate fiction writing before leaving academia to write full-time. An Illinois native , she has two grown sons and two nearly grown stepsons, and currently lives in Florida with her husband.

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Links:

Therese on Twitter @ThereseFowler

Therese Anne Fowler’s website for Z

Zelda’s board on the Two Roads Pinterest site

Memorable Dates:

The Great Gatsby published April 10, 1925

Zelda Fitzgerald: 24 July 1900 – 10 March 1948

Save Me The Waltz published in October 7, 1932

F Scott Fitzgerald: 24 September 1896 – 21 December 1940

Frances Scott Fitzgerald (Scottie) October 26 1921 – June 18 1986