West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan

As a lover of The Great Gatsby, and the whole era including Fitzgerald, Hemingway, et al., and being a fellow Pittsburgher, I looked forward to reading this new book from Stewart O’Nan. It is a “fictionalized biography” that recounts the final years of F. Scott Fitzgerald, when he is struggling with alcoholism and struggling to hold down a job in the film industry in Hollywood. His wife, Zelda, is in a mental institution back east, and his daughter, Scottie, is in school back east. He only sees them once or twice a year for holidays or vacation. Scott becomes friends with some big Hollywood names and begins an affair with Sheilah Graham, a gossip columnist. Throughout the book, he is on a downward spiral, and it’s sad to see a man with such talent go down the tubes and lose the respect of pretty much everyone, including himself.

I have to say this book is very well written, and O’Nan obviously put in an extensive amount of time on research. His writing is almost poetic at times, especially in the first chapter. However, I am giving it four stars because I was not engaged emotionally by the characters. It is a good story with lots of ups and downs, but it didn’t grab me by the heart. Even his relationship with Sheilah seemed lackluster. I’m not sure what it was, but for me it had an almost clinical aspect, like reading a news report instead of a novel. Just the facts, ma’am. I don’t know; maybe it’s just me. All in all, though, I learned a lot about Fitzgerald that I didn’t know, and it’s well worth the read.