I am consistently drawn in, and consistently disappointed, by bio-novels about women made unhappy by famous men. I read The Paris Wife, about Hadley Hemingway. I read Loving Frank, about Frank Lloyd Wright’s mistress. I read the diaries of Sofya Tolstoy. And now I’ve read Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. I put each of them aside a heavy sigh when I’ve finished. I’m not disappointed in the books, but in the lives of the women. The point of these books is to tell their side of the story, but in reality, and definitely in Zelda’s case, they didn’t get their own side of the story.
The Museum of Unhappy Women by Janet Potter
“Paradoxically, this is the reason to write and read about Zelda [Fitzgerald], because she deserved a life much more interesting than the one that she got. Interesting to her, that is, a life she could have given her energy and talents to, not just a life made interesting by famous friends and European capitals.” - Janet Potter
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“Paradoxically, this is the reason to write and read about Zelda [Fitzgerald], because she deserved a life much more interesting than the one that she got. Interesting to her, that is, a life she could have given her energy and talents to, not just a life made interesting by famous friends and European capitals.” - Janet Potter

There is a certain type of book, well-represented in 20th- and 21st-century American literature, that is about Men Handling Things. I can’t define the precise requirements of this genre, but I know that I’ve read this type of book many times over, by anyone from Fitzgerald and Hemingway to the Richards Yates and Ford. And let me be clear, I’ve just named four of my favorite authors. I’m not going to rant against Men Handling Things novels. I mean to say that there are a lot of them.
Men Handling Things: On Stuart Nadler’s Wise Men by Janet Potter
“I feel that The Great Gatsby is the most together, the most surgically artistic effort of a novelist who was more exciting when he was not trying to contain the hot, maudlin, meandering mess of his own talent. (For the record, I also sense something phony about Gatsby’s very phoniness — for me the only convincing poor person Fitzgerald wrote was one who lost his fortune, not one who made it.  Fitzgerald’s poor people were like his black people or his Jews–all characteristics, no character.)” Modern Library Revue: #28 Tender is the Night by Lydia Kiesling
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“I feel that The Great Gatsby is the most together, the most surgically artistic effort of a novelist who was more exciting when he was not trying to contain the hot, maudlin, meandering mess of his own talent. (For the record, I also sense something phony about Gatsby’s very phoniness — for me the only convincing poor person Fitzgerald wrote was one who lost his fortune, not one who made it.  Fitzgerald’s poor people were like his black people or his Jews–all characteristics, no character.)”

Modern Library Revue: #28 Tender is the Night by Lydia Kiesling

“I used to feel that the novel output of Fitzgerald was like the literary version of the Myers Briggs test: whichever one a person favored was some fundamental indicator of his or her personality.  Roughly it followed that ordinary and banal people liked The Great Gatsby, snotty, effete types liked This Side of Paradise, and The Beautiful and Damned was for the discerning and unconventional (I’ll let you guess in which camp I numbered myself).  Tender is the Night was sort of an unknown quantity, preferred by dramatic people, maybe, or people who take pills.” Modern Library Revue: #28 Tender is the Night by Lydia Kiesling
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“I used to feel that the novel output of Fitzgerald was like the literary version of the Myers Briggs test: whichever one a person favored was some fundamental indicator of his or her personality.  Roughly it followed that ordinary and banal people liked The Great Gatsby, snotty, effete types liked This Side of Paradise, and The Beautiful and Damned was for the discerning and unconventional (I’ll let you guess in which camp I numbered myself).  Tender is the Night was sort of an unknown quantity, preferred by dramatic people, maybe, or people who take pills.”

Modern Library Revue: #28 Tender is the Night by Lydia Kiesling

Presenting a Literary Lovefest

Friends of The Millions! Today is Valentine’s Day, and that means it’s time for your humble editors to show you how much we love… well… love. And because most (or all) of us are naturalized citizens of Bookland, we figured the best way to do that is to show you our favorite love letters. Think F. Scott Fitzgerald, Abelard, James Joyce and Sylvia Plath. Think wild yearnings, unrestrained lust and a slight, slight hint of the kinky. Think, in other words, of amazing writers in love.

To that end, we’ll be posting excerpts throughout the day right here on our lovesick Tumblr. If you’re looking to join in, post an excerpt of a letter we left out and tag it #Love of The Millions. We’ll post it ourselves if we like it. Why? Because we love you, of course.