Irresistibly charming, recklessly brilliant, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald epitomized everything that was beautiful and damned about the Jazz Age. But behind the legend, there was a highly complex and competitive marriage — a union not of opposites but almost of twins who both inspired and tormented each other, and who were ultimately destroyed by their shared fantasies. Now in this frank, stylish, superbly written new book, Kendall Taylor tells the story of the Fitzgerald marriage as it has never been told before.

Following the success of Fitzgerald?s first novel, This Side of Paradise, Scott and Zelda took New York by storm. Scott was recognized as the greatest American author of the twenties and everyone was fascinated with Zelda, his ravishing young wife, known as the model for all his flapper heroines. Ultimately it all fell apart, and Kendall Taylor tells us why. Drawing on previously suppressed material, including crucial medical records, Taylor sheds fresh light on Zelda?s depths and mysteries?her rich but largely unrealized artistic talents, her own ambitions that were unfulfilled because she was Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, her passionate love affairs. Zelda?s contribution to Scott?s fiction, which was based on her diaries, her letters, and her life, was her only great achievement?and for that she may have paid the terrible price of her own sanity.

In Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom, Kendall Taylor has created the definitive Fitzgerald biography. Written with sympathy, original insight, and dazzling style — and featuring memorable appearances from Edmund Wilson, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway, among others?this is a stunning portrait of a marriage, an age, and a fabulous but tragic woman.

"A library of books has been published about the legendary Fitzgeralds whose lives were filled with epic drama and tragedy. But Kendall Taylor proves that the best account of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald — smart, beautiful, and ambitious — was still waiting to be written. No other portrait is as richly detailed, as psychologically nuanced, as powerful and disturbing. Moving beyond the 'last of the flappers' cliches, Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom threw me into Zelda's world, where I could not help marveling, gasping, and shuddering. This is a heartrending biography that had me glued to the pages." Marion Meade, Author of Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?

"Drawing on every source available to her for this unflinching portrait of the Fitzgerald marriage, Kendall Taylor gives us a disturbing story that bears retelling." Frances Kiernan, Author of Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy

Kendall Taylor, Ph.D., a cultural historian and Fulbright scholar, has been a professor and a museum curator. Her interest in Zelda Fitzgerald began thirty years ago when she was a graduate student at Vanderbilt University and read Arthur Mizener?s biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Noting that Mizener?s study left Zelda?s life largely undocumented, Taylor began her own research by speaking with many of the Fitzgeralds? acquaintances and conducting interviews with Zelda?s friends and family. She has continued that investigation over the past decades. She lives in Canton, New York.