Beautiful Fools

This Fitzgeralds’ novel “is historical fiction at its best, imaginatively filling the gaps and bringing us intimately into a portrait of a marriage.”(Times Literary Supplement)
In 1939 F. Scott Fitzgerald is living in Hollywood, a virulent alcoholic and deeply in debt. Despite his relationship with gossip columnist Sheila Graham, he remains fiercely loyal to his wife, Zelda, his soul mate and muse. In an attempt to fuse together their fractured marriage, Scott arranges a trip to Cuba, where, after a disastrous first night in Havana, the couple runs off to a beach resort outside the city. But even in paradise, Scott and Zelda cannot escape the dangerous intensity of their relationship. In Beautiful Fools, R. Clifton Spargo gives us a vivid, resplendent, and truly human portrait of the Fitzgeralds, and reveals the heartbreaking patterns and unexpected moments of tenderness that characterize a great romance in decline.
“This approach to the Fitzgeralds’ story is the most successful of the bunch . . . With its contained arc and energetic plotting, Beautiful Fools takes the focus off more familiar episodes in the couple’s history.” —The New Yorker
“In Spargo’s hands, the Fitzgeralds emerge as fully human, if crazed and ruined characters.”
—The Washington Post
“Beautiful Fools is the work of a genuine literary talent. . . . Spargo’s Fitzgeralds come alive.” —The Spectator
“Spargo's book is richly imagined, and paints a delightfully detailed portrait of Cuba of 1939. It's a positively delicious travelogue.” —Chicago Tribune
“Alternating between Scott’s and Zelda’s perspectives, Spargo describes the imperfect communion of two troubled souls who can’t quite let go of their past or each other.” —Boston Globe