Beautiful Fools

March 15, 2013
Yet another addition to the spate of novels about Scott and Zelda, this one concentrating less on the toxic and more on the loving side of their relationship. Spargo has an unconventional take on the Fitzgeralds here. Except for a brief introduction set in 1932, when Zelda is first hospitalized for schizophrenia, the novel takes place in April of 1939, on their extended vacation to Cuba. "Vacation" is, however, a circumlocution, for two personalities as intense and brittle as Scott and Zelda can't ever be said to kick back, relax and temporarily forget about their "normal" lives, for there is no normal. Scott is deep into (and taking a break from) his illicit affair with Sheilah Graham, and Zelda is between hospitalizations, hoping for some kind of therapeutic epiphany with Scott. In Havana, Scott quickly finds a simpatico drinking buddy in the form of the darkly charismatic Mateo Cardona, though Zelda is less impressed and worried about his influence over Scott. After a tragic knife fight in a bar, Cardona tries to cover for Scott and Zelda, who have witnessed the event, for he wishes both to protect and to assert greater power over them. Cardona is less than pleased when the Fitzgeralds take off for a resort away from Havana and develop a friendship with a newly married couple: Spaniard Aurelio, wounded in the Spanish Civil War, and his French wife, Maryvonne. Their friendship quickly develops an almost erotic quality, as Maryvonne is both flirtatious and seductive with Scott, but Zelda begins to come undone when they visit a Cuban fortuneteller who hints that Scott has been unfaithful to Zelda--and Zelda takes the seer at her word, pressing Scott for details. Spargo writes with animation and fervor, a style conducive to the heat generated by his subjects.

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May 1, 2013
Mental illness in one partner fractures both halves of a couple. Zelda Fitzgerald reverses roles by trying to institutionalize Scott; we see his declining health. In his fury, what is considered healing for one is punishment for another. Women are his electroshocks. Well and unwell prove hard to delineate. Scott is Zelda's only company, yet she blames him for her isolation. These destructive artists cannot recognize each other's pain as not their own to claim. Scott feels lost destiny, which would and always would be her fault; her illness is obstacle for him. Simultaneously, he wants to be her caretaker, not relinquish her to strangers, though he does. She feels illness as sin, hospital as penance. One flaw is these intricacies are explicitly told. Scott cautions Zelda against speculating wildly. Spargo pursues distinctions of marital love and eros, obligation and desire, but this theme never engages as deeply as scenes where small eventssuch as celebrating new shoes, or a hand's touchare imagined as capable of healing enormous issues.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)