The Crack-Up

Produced when F. Scott Fitzgerald was at a low point in his life, much of the contents of this compilation were written for Esquire magazine. When they appeared there in 1936, they were greeted with horror by Fitzgerald's friends, who were embarrassed for him at the public revelation of his personal difficulties, including his alcoholism, his inability to write, and the feeling that he was mortgaging [him]self physically and spiritually up to the hilt. (Hemingway considered the confessions cowardly.) After Fitzgerald's death in 1940, Edmund Wilson combined the Esquire material with excerpts from Fitzgerald's notebooks and journals and published the volume known as THE CRACK-UP. These selections are often harrowing, but they provide valuable insight into the mind and the soul of a great American writer who wrote, in one of his most famous lines, In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning.... Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.