In a famous three-part essay for Esquire in 1936 written during the most miserable period of his life, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “all life is a process of breaking down,” a series of both external and internal “blows” whose cumulative effect can be destructive of self-incurred illusion. One of those blows for Fitzgerald was the deterioration of his wife Zelda’s mental health, which led to her committal to a sanatorium in Asheville. Holed up in two rooms at the Grove Park Inn, Scott Fitzgerald experienced his own protracted “dark night of the soul,” drinking up to forty bottles of beer a day and carrying on with married women, absorbed in the ever-contracting world of his own troubles. He distilled the intensity of that experience into the trio of essays that became known collectively as “The Crack-Up.”
Closing Time in America
Closing Time in America
Closing Time in America
In a famous three-part essay for Esquire in 1936 written during the most miserable period of his life, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “all life is a process of breaking down,” a series of both external and internal “blows” whose cumulative effect can be destructive of self-incurred illusion. One of those blows for Fitzgerald was the deterioration of his wife Zelda’s mental health, which led to her committal to a sanatorium in Asheville. Holed up in two rooms at the Grove Park Inn, Scott Fitzgerald experienced his own protracted “dark night of the soul,” drinking up to forty bottles of beer a day and carrying on with married women, absorbed in the ever-contracting world of his own troubles. He distilled the intensity of that experience into the trio of essays that became known collectively as “The Crack-Up.”