West of Sunset

In 1937 F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long over. In poor health, with his wife consigned to a mental asylum and his finances in ruins, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood. By December of 1940, he would be dead of a heart attack. Those last three years of Fitzgeralds life, often obscured by the legend of his earlier Jazz Age glamour, are the focus of Stewart ONans gorgeously and gracefully written novel. With flashbacks to key moments from Fitzgeralds past, the story follows him as he arrives on the MGM lot, falls in love with brassy gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, begins work on The Last Tycoon, and tries to maintain a semblance of family life with the absent Zelda and daughter Scottie. Fitzgeralds orbit of literary fame and the golden age of Hollywood is brought vividly to life through the novels romantic cast of characters, from Dorothy Parker and Ernest Hemingway to Humphrey Bogart. A sympathetic and deeply personal portrait of a flawed man who never gave up, even as his every wish and hope seemed thwarted, West of Sunset confirms ONan as possibly our best working novelist (Salon).