This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise
Book for May 2018
Group 3

is a fictionalized account of Fitzgerald's own (love-) life up to 1919. The book centers on Amory Blaine, Fitzgerald's alter ego. It is written in three parts:

"Book One: The Romantic Egotist" - Blaine is a young Midwesterner, convinced of his bright future. He attends boarding school and later Princeton University. He re-encounters Isabelle Borgé, a young lady whom he had met as a little boy, and starts a romantic relationship with her. Away at Princeton he repeatedly writes ever more flowery poems. But Amory and Isabelle become disenchanted with each other after meeting again at his prom.

"Interlude" - Following the break-up, Amory is shipped overseas, to serve in the army in World War I.

"Book Two: The Education of a Personage" - After the war, Amory falls in love with New York debutante Rosalind Connage. But their relationship collapses because he is poor and Rosalind decides to marry a wealthy rival.

About the Author
F. Scott Fitzgerald

was born September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota where his father had moved after the American civil war, one of the father's cousins was hanged in 1865 for conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

F. Scott Fitzgerald finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night. He and his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, became emblems of the Jazz Age. Ernest Hemingway blamed Zelda for Scott's declining literary output, though her extensive diaries provided much material for his fiction.

Zelda was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1930 and hospitalized. F. Scott Fitzgerald died December 21st, 1940 from the effects of prolonged severe alcoholism.