West of Sunset (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780143128243)

A "mesmerizing and haunting" (The Boston Globe) novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald's last years in Hollywood

In 1937, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long over. In poor health, with his wife consigned to an asylum and his finances in ruin, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

Those last three years of Fitzgerald's life are the focus of Stewart O'Nan's graceful and elegiac novel West of Sunset. With flashbacks to Fitzgerald's glamorous Jazz Age past, the story follows him as he arrives on the MGM lot, falls in love with brassy gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, begins work on The Last Tycoon, and tries to maintain a semblance of family life with the absent Zelda and their daughter, Scottie. The Golden Age of Hollywood is brought vividly to life through the novel's romantic cast of characters, from Dorothy Parker and Ernest Hemingway to Humphrey Bogart. Written with striking grace and subtlety, this is a wise and intimate portrait of a man trying his best to hold together a world that's flying apart.

Author: Stewart O'Nan
ISBN-10: 0143128248
ISBN-13: 9780143128243
Publisher: Penguin Books
Language: English
Published: 12/29/2015
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.40w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 01/03/2016 pg. 24