Call Me Zelda (44 page)

The first and best source comes from the words of the subjects themselves. I found the most inspiration from Zelda’s novel
Save Me the Waltz
and her short stories and essays, and Scott’s novels and stories. Letters, medical files, photos, and the occasional rare and beautiful video footage were also instrumental in presenting the Fitzgeralds as completely as I could.

Some of the books I consulted during this project are listed below, and are excellent resources for both the curious reader and the scholar.

Bruccoli, Matthew J., Scottie Fitzgerald Smith, and Joan P. Kerr.
The Romantic Egoists: A Pictorial Autobiography from the Scrapbooks and Albums of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
New York: Scribner, 1974.

Cline, Sally.
Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise.
New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott.
A Life in Letters
, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Fitzgerald, Zelda.
The Collected Writings
, edited by Matthew J. Broccoli. New York: Scribner, 1991.

Lanahan, Eleanor.
Scottie: The Daughter of…The Life of Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith.
New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

———.
Zelda: An Illustrated Life.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.

Meyers, Jeffrey.
Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography.
New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

Milford, Nancy.
Zelda: A Biography.
New York: HarperPerennial, reissue edition, 2011. Originally published by Harper & Row in 1970.

READERS GUIDE

CALL ME
ZELDA

E
RIKA
R
OBUCK

READERS GUIDE

READERS GUIDE

A CONVERSATION WITH
ERIKA ROBUCK

Q. Your last novel was about Ernest Hemingway. This one is about Zelda Fitzgerald. Have you made a deliberate choice to write about literary figures?

A. It may sound strange, but I feel as if they have chosen me. I was working on a sequel to my self-published novel about slavery when I visited Hemingway’s house in Key West. I’ve felt haunted by Hemingway ever since. While I researched him, I became fascinated by his relationship with the Fitzgeralds. That’s when Zelda wouldn’t leave me alone.

The subject of my current work in progress, Edna St. Vincent Millay, entered my consciousness as I read about two Princeton classmates of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, Edmund “Bunny” Wilson and John Peale Bishop, who were both in love with Millay. I had long enjoyed Millay’s poetry, but after reading about her personal life, I found it every bit as interesting as her work. That’s when I knew she would be my next subject.

Q. What about Zelda at this particular time in her life especially interested you, and what kind of research did you do in preparation for writing the novel?

A. I live in Maryland, and have spent a lot of time around the old Baltimore Fitzgerald haunts. I had made several trips to Johns Hopkins Hospital, but had never known about the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic until I learned about Zelda’s time there. Also, my grandmother, now deceased, was a psychiatric nurse, so I knew a bit about mental health care. Because of my proximity to these places from this phase of the Fitzgeralds’ lives, my family background, and the fact that little has been written about their lives “after the party,” I knew I wanted to highlight this time.

In addition to reading numerous biographies by critics and family members, I visited Princeton University to research the Fitzgerald archive there. I’ve also been to the Phipps Building where it still stands, have attended an exhibit of Zelda’s art at Johns Hopkins Evergreen Museum, and have paid my respects at the Fitzgeralds’ graves in Rockville, Maryland.

Q. Did Zelda really write diaries, and did her husband really “steal” material from them and include it in his novels? Do we know what became of the diaries?

A. Yes, Zelda really did write diaries that Scott took, allowed friends to read, used in his fiction, and ultimately hid or destroyed after theater critic George Jean Nathan read them in the Westport basement and suggested they publish them. I was unable to find any mention of the diaries after the Westport days, but did find a possible allusion to them from the Fitzgeralds’ time at La Paix. It is possible that the diaries were saved from the fire there, and stayed in a storage locker while Scott moved to North Carolina, but I have not been able to trace anything definitive.

I sent a letter to the current owner of the house at Compo Road in Westport to ask about the inside configuration of the rooms and basement, and if they had ever found any Fitzgerald
artifacts. They wrote me back very kindly (for it must have been a strange letter to receive) but said they did not find anything.

Q. What did you learn about Zelda, and the Fitzgeralds in general, that most surprised you, details that perhaps didn’t make it into the novel?

A. What most surprised me was their continued devotion to each other in spite of all of their miseries, affairs, and tragedies. It was truly as if they were connected at the soul.

Something else that surprised me was Zelda’s dedication to dance and how far her talent almost took her. She did not take up ballet until her later twenties, and was offered a position in a prominent ballet company in Italy, which she ultimately declined. She made extraordinary progress in ballet for having begun at such an “advanced” age for dancing.

Another interesting detail was that Zelda became an accomplished painter. She had exhibitions in Baltimore, New York, and Montgomery, Alabama, and not just because she was the wife of a famous author. She showed true artistic genius and originality in her work.

Q. Why did you decide to make Anna Howard, a fictional character, the narrator? Did you think it was important for Anna to experience a tragedy in her past, so that she could be more sympathetic toward Zelda during her emotional breakdown?

A. Anna came to me, in part, after I read a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald called “One Interne” about a resident in love with an anesthetist at Johns Hopkins: “A dark-haired girl with great, luminous eyes” who shared an apartment with a female musician from Peabody, and who had a brass sculpture by the artist Brancusi in her apartment. Later, in my research, I read about Zelda’s
ill-fated trip to her New York art showing at Cary Ross’s gallery, that she had traveled with a nurse, and that Zelda had to be sedated on the train back to Craig House in Beacon, New York. These ingredients blended together, and Nurse Anna emerged.

It was very important to me that Anna have her own tragic past. I wanted Anna to connect to Zelda and be needed by Zelda to draw herself out of her past pain, and to give more than would have been required in caring for Zelda. Without a tragic past, Anna could not have empathized with her friend and patient, or wanted to help her so badly. In helping Zelda, of course, Anna is helping to heal herself.

Q. In both
Hemingway’s Girl
and
Call Me Zelda,
you explore the harm that writers can do when they use the people in their lives to create their work. But isn’t it inevitable that writers draw material from their own lives, and especially from their relationships? As a writer yourself, how do you deal with this paradox?

A. The irony is not lost on me that I use these writers as I condemn them for using others in their fiction, but what I do is different. First, I don’t use my living family or friends as characters. While I may use details, personality traits, or events in creating my characters, none of them is a perfect representation of a living acquaintance. Also, my mission is one of redemption, especially of these tortured, dead writers. I feel connected to them and wish for their ultimate peace. My writing is a prayer for them.

Q.
Call Me Zelda
strikes me as, above all, a novel about female friendship. Anna takes great risks in trying to help Zelda, and at one point Zelda saves Anna’s life. In your opinion, is it necessary to take risks in a relationship in order to make it truly meaningful? Are we sometimes guilty of avoiding a deeper involvement by telling ourselves we have no business telling a friend how to live her life?

A. Yes, I think taking risks and allowing oneself to be vulnerable to another makes for a deeper relationship. In opening one’s heart to another, sharing one’s passions and fears, one is exposed. It is mutual exposure and acceptance that knit us to one another.

Such a level of intimacy is difficult, though. It allows others to have power over us, power to judge or to hurt. On the other side, however, it can form connections that endure across time and space, and give us the security of knowing that someone, somewhere understands us and would risk anything for us—even laying down her life for us. This form of friendship is rare and beautiful, and I hope I was able to illustrate it through Anna and Zelda’s relationship.

Q. Music plays an important role in the novel. In fact, I found myself wanting to listen to the pieces that are mentioned as I read. Did you always intend for music to play a role? And can you include a playlist, for those of us who would like to seek out the pieces?

A. Yes, I always wanted music to play a role. Music is essential to my creative process. I listen to classical piano music while I write to get in the “zone.” What I hear in the music often inspires scenes: from the very light, to the frenzied, to the frightening, romantic, or dramatic. Music also calms me, and as I was researching the past of Walter Reed, I read about the music therapy program for shell-shocked soldiers. I thought it would add an important layer to the book to show a creative art as a healing practice, in contrast to what the creative process often did to Zelda.

Some of the musical pieces mentioned in the book are Mendelssohn’s
Songs Without Words
, Mahler’s
Kindertotenlieder
, and Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” from the opera
La Gioconda
. “Embraceable You” by Gershwin is playing on the phonograph the night Anna and Will have their first kiss. I listened to that song on repeat while I wrote the scene. It still gives me chills.

Q. What would you most like readers to take away from reading
Call Me Zelda?

A. Some of the themes that I hope resonate with readers are the depths of true friendship, the danger of using others, and the power of confession and atonement. I also wanted to explore the concept of how beautiful we can become if we first go through trials and allow ourselves to be transformed and purified. If readers want to go deeper into these themes, and the theology that informs most of Peter’s character in the novel, they might seek out the writings of Caryll Houselander, which are profound.

Q. As we write this, your previous novel,
Hemingway’s Girl,
is about to go on sale. What has the experience of writing and publishing that book been like for you so far, and what are you most looking forward to as it becomes available to readers?

A. The response to
Hemingway’s Girl
has been a phenomenal experience. From my publishing team, to blogger support, reader feedback, and social media enthusiasm, I’m being showered with positivity. It took about ten years for me to find an agent and publisher, and there were times when I wanted to give up. Ultimately, I kept at it because writing is my passion, and I knew I’d do it whether or not I had a publisher. Getting to travel now to so many wonderful conferences and bookstores, seeing enthusiastic reader reviews, and hearing about news outlets that will cover the book is overwhelming and gratifying beyond words.

What I’m most looking forward to is meeting with all of the book clubs and readers who were behind me when I was a self-published author, and not only showing them where I am now, but also thanking them for their incredible support. I really couldn’t have done it without them and without the encouragement of my family and friends.

Q. What is your next novel about?

A. My next novel takes me into the strange, compelling, bohemian world of the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Based on themes from
The Scarlet Letter
, the novel will immerse readers in a judgmental New England town full of secrets and scandal. A seamstress, a sculptor, and the poet are just some of the characters in this historical suspense novel that weaves a tapestry of truth and fiction.

READERS GUIDE

READERS GUIDE

QUESTIONS
FOR DISCUSSION

1. What did you most enjoy about
Call Me Zelda
? Did you make an emotional connection with the characters?

2. The novel depicts the marriage of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald as one of soul mates who destroy each other even as they can’t quite live without each other. Why do we find such relationships so fascinating? Can you think of others like it? Are they more common in literature than in life?

3. Zelda does not narrate the story, but the title bears her name and she is obviously central. Discuss the triumph and tragedy of her life. What do you feel for her? Do you understand her? What aspects of her character most fascinate you, and what relevance does her life story have for us today?

4. Does Anna blur the boundaries between her professional care for Zelda and her personal feelings for her? Are there times when Anna’s affection for Zelda causes her to make poor choices regarding Zelda’s care, and in her own personal life? How would you have handled the situation?

5. When the novel opens, Anna is stuck in life, having spent years mourning her lost husband and child. What is preventing her from moving forward? What ultimately allows her to embrace life more fully, and what role does Zelda play in that change?