Zelda also faced challenges in the ballet studio. In her mid-twenties, she was too old to achieve her dream of becoming a prima ballerina, but she could still have made a career out of it had her health not failed. A portrayal of the marriage of Alabama Beggs and David Knight, Save Me the Waltz highlights the trials and tribulations both went through in their attempts to discover their own identities, separately and in the context of one another. Using place and setting, Fitzgerald manages to portray the nuanced, multifaceted lives of the Knights. Fitzgerald’s characters are compelling, interesting and multi-dimensional, and she makes them extremely likable, despite all their flaws.

verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ In part, then, it’s Zelda’s story the way that her husband wanted it to be told, but there are still elements that are very different from Scott’s and that can therefore be assumed are Zelda’s unique style — lush description, vivid colors, a southern summer brought to life in dripping heat and suffocating magnolias, the anguish and pain of obsession and alcoholism, and the frantic search for an identity outside of marriage. More recently, it has been reissued by Handheld Press. However, interest in Zelda’s writing and life has only really surged since the 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Several novels have been based on her life.

The search for a creative outlet

Turnbull, Andrew (1962) [1954], Scott Fitzgerald, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, LCCN 62-9315– via Internet Archive

Save Me the Waltz is the only novel ever written by Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of famous American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1932, it was written in six weeks while Zelda was hospitalized for schizophrenia. It is a semi-autobiographical account of her relationship with Scott, providing insight into their disturbed marriage.One of the great literary curios of the twentieth century Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which strangely parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on Scott Fitzgerald's life and work. In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story: the confessional of a famous glamour girl of the affluent 1920s and an aspiring ballerina which captures the spirit of an era. Fitzgerald, Zelda (1991), Bruccoli, Matthew J. (ed.), The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, ISBN 0-684-19297-7– via Internet Archive Alabama grows further apart from her husband and their daughter. Determined to be famous, an aging Alabama aspires to become a renowned prima ballerina and devotes herself relentlessly to this ambition. She is offered an opportunity to dance featured parts with a prestigious company in Naples—and she takes it, and goes to live in the city alone. Alabama dances her solo debut in the opera Faust. However, a blister soon becomes infected from the glue in the box of her pointe shoe, leading to blood poisoning, and Alabama can never dance again. Though outwardly successful, Alabama and David are miserable. Cline, Sally (2003), Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise, New York: Arcade Publishing, ISBN 1-55970-688-0– via Internet Archive

It is not only that her publishers have not seen fit to curb an almost ludicrous lushness of writing but they have not given the book the elementary services of a literate proofreader." [40]

II

Upon learning that Zelda had submitted her manuscript to Perkins, Scott became perturbed that she had not shown her manuscript to him beforehand. [25] After reading the manuscript, he objected to her novel's plagiarism of the character of Amory Blaine, the protagonist in his first novel This Side of Paradise. [26] He was further surprised to learn that Zelda's novel used the very same plot elements as his upcoming novel, Tender Is the Night. [27] In Winter of 1929, Zelda Fitzgerald's mental health abruptly deteriorated. [15] During an automobile trip to Paris along the mountainous roads of the Grande Corniche, Zelda seized the car's steering wheel and tried to kill herself, her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald, and their 9-year-old daughter Scottie by driving over a cliff. [16] Fitzgerald, F. Scott (July 1966) [January 1940], Turnbull, Andrew (ed.), The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons– via Internet Archive