This Side of Paradise
One hundred years ago today, a new literary voice was released on the world — one that would come to define a generation. The debut novel sold out its first printing of 3,000 copies in just three days and would go on to sell a total of 41,075 copies in its first year. Reviewers and critics lauded it with descriptors like “genius” (Chicago Tribune) and “the best American novel of late” (H.L. Mencken). But this success was the means to a larger goal for the young author. He was desperately trying to win back the love of his life.
In the summer of 1919, Montgomery socialite Zelda Sayre broke her engagement to the then 22-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald. Despite launching a career in advertising in order to prove his ability to support both a wife and his writing, she wasn’t convinced. Fitzgerald was heartbroken, but a plan slowly formed in his mind: perhaps he could prove to Zelda that his writing could itself achieve the level of required success. So, he set out to pen the book that would become This Side of Paradise, based in part on earlier unpublished manuscripts including a novel, some short stories and poems.
The book follows the life and loves of Amory Blaine, a student at Princeton with literary ambitions. Much of the plot is autobiographical — like Fitzgerald, Blaine attempts a career at advertising, suffers from bouts of heavy drinking, and ultimately loses the woman he loves. For Fitzgerald, though, the ploy worked — upon the news of the novel’s acceptance for publication, Zelda once again agreed to marry him. They married just days after the novel’s release.
A Collective Read to Celebrate the Novel’s 100th Anniversary
To celebrate the centennial anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s debut, the folks behind Gatsby in Connecticut, a documentary about Scott and Zelda’s time in Westport in 1920, are coordinating a collective read of This Side of Paradise, to be led by Professor Kirk Curnutt, one of the world’s leading Fitzgerald authorities. Professor Curnutt is executive director of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society and serves as managing editor of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review. He is professor and chair of English at Troy University.
So if your book club has been canceled indefinitely, if you need an escape from the worries of 2020, if you’ve always wanted to read This Side of Paradise (or long to reread it), here’s a chance to do it alongside some of the most insightful Fitzgerald experts in the country. The week of reading will culminate with a book discussion lead by Professor Curnutt via live stream on the project’s Facebook page at 3:00 p.m. EST on April 3 — which, appropriately, is also the 100-year wedding anniversary of the Fitzgeralds. There’s an associated Facebook event here.
“At a time when all of our lives have been put on hold,” says Robert Steven Williams and Deej Webb of Gatsby in Connecticut, “celebrating Scott’s debut novel 100 years after its publication seemed like the perfect tonic for the pandemic blues.”
