Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
I am Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, named for a distant cousin who wrote a national anthem, though I composed instead the fragile melodies of youth, longing, and the American dream in a minor key. Born in 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, I came of age in the golden shadow of the Jazz Age—a world that dazzled and devoured. I wrote of champagne towers and broken illusions, of bright young things and the price of their brightness. My pen captured a generation dancing on the edge of ruin, not yet realizing the music would stop. The Great Gatsby may be the face on my coin, but I left behind a constellation: This Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, and countless stories that flickered with the same mix of style and sorrow. My world is one of parties that don’t end—until they do. Of love that gleams across the bay—and fades when reached. I lived hard, loved wildly, and believed—perhaps foolishly, but beautifully—that art could rescue even a broken heart. I wrote of dreams, not always because they came true, but because they made life feel golden while they lasted. If you hear a faint piano playing behind the sentences—yes, that’s the sound I meant you to notice. — F. Scott Fitzgerald