Sheilah Graham

Sheilah Graham was F Scott Fitzgerald's partner for the last few years of his life. A British, East End orphan who moved to the US and became a journalist. Lacking formal education, FSF, a natural teacher, created a two year course across a wide range of subjects to give her the confidence she desired to function in the world they lived in. Sadly, he died, aged 44, before she could 'graduate', but she continued the course on her own.

A wonderful gift to a lover, and fascinating insight into show more the writer.

This was my fourth reading. I collected all the books on the literary curriculum, and intend to take the course in my retirement.

It also makes me wonder, were Scott living now, what the course he would create would include. show less

This autobiography of Sheila Graham - a gossip columnist during the Golden Years of Hollywood - was written with the help of ghostwriter, biographer, and confessor to the stars, Gerold Frank. It has been praised as "the very best portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald that has yet been put into print." In a way, it is the literary equivalent of a turducken" - delicious, but to be consumed with more than a grain of salt, for it represents "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma".

F. Scott show more Fitzgerald, lyrical genius, and author of The Great Gatsby, was an enigmatic tragic figure. A symbol of the youthful Roaring Twenties, he outlived his time on the stage, and was nearly forgotten by the reading public by the late 30's. His books were then out of print. He doubted his ability to produce another novel. And he struggled to find a niche as a screenwriter while contending with both alcoholism and tuberculosis. During a drinking binge, he could be as cruel and self-destructive as a Dostoyevsky anti-hero. Yet, he could write of love and estrangement with a unique Romantic pathos.

Sheila Graham kept her past, and her private life, a mystery for much of her career. She was humiliated by her childhood in a London Jewish orphanage. She felt handicapped by her eighth grade education. To advance in society, and circulate as a single woman, she and her first husband conspired to keep their marriage a secret. Although she ultimately chose the romantic over the practical in her love life, she was remarkably cold-blooded about assessing the financial and societal advantages of two potential mates whom she rejected, both of whom were millionaires, and one of whom was royalty. And she felt no compunction about flirting or using her looks to advance her prospects.

Gerold Frank is a bit of a riddle, at least in so far as the extent to which he helped craft this book. A gifted writer, he had a knack for drawing out biographical material from his subjects, who included Judy Garland, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Lilian Roth. In his NY Times obituary, Diana Barrymore is quoted as saying ''I told him things I wouldn't have told a priest,'' she said. ''He was always there, like a sponge. I lied to him, and I am a brilliant liar. But he'd know.'' The picture Graham reveals of herself is not always flattering, so it seems he merits more than mere editing credit for this compelling book.

Graham was Fitzgerald's lover for the last four years of his life, and was present during his fatal heart attack. Their time together was turbulent due to his intermittent drinking. At one point, and once at gunpoint, they almost permanently split up. But perhaps the most surprising aspect of their relationship was his role as her intellectual mentor. He created for her a "College of One", with detailed reading assignments and relished his role as her personal tutor on art, history, music and literature. Graham's career was as unlikely in its meteoric ascent as Gatsby's and she shared with Gatsby an aching sense of the necessity of romance. Fitzgerald and Graham seem too perfect a match. Each to each seems equally a beloved infidel. That perfected romance - a squared circle - may just be true and the answer to this relationship wrapped in mystery inside their enigmas. show less

It is a sad fact that whenever someone famous dies those who are tangential to their lives will write something to make money off the corpse, and in the case of Sheilah Graham, she managed to do it twice, first with Beloved Infidel which was made into a mawkish movie in 1959 and then again with this book in 1967.

In this book we have not only the ugly scenes of FItzgerald in his final stages of alcoholism,but also the story of his playing the little professor, trying to give Graham some show more measure of literary intelligence. I'm not sure which is the most pathetic: Fitzgerald's obsessive reading lists and explanatory notes or Grahams equally pathetic feelings of gratitude for the attention of a once famous, but now washed up author.

For truly obsessed Fitzgerald fans (of which I am one) only. show less

Graham was Scott's lover and constant companion during the last part of his life. She clarifies misinterpretations from other biographies and in some cases completely refutes them. The book contains many letters between Scott and others, especially Scottie, his daughter and lifelong friend of Graham. Scott is portrayed as well-intentioned but thwarted by his "reverse diabetic" need for alcohol, cigarrettes, and cokes. His premature death preempted the completion of The Last Tycoon, which show more family, publishers, and critics agreed would have been his greatest work and the greatest novel about the Hollywood culture of that time. show less