{"product_id":"taking-things-hard-the-trials-of-f-scott-fitzgerald-9780807179345","title":"Taking Things Hard: The Trials of F. Scott Fitzgerald","description":"\u003ch2\u003eTaking Things Hard: The Trials of F. Scott Fitzgerald\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eF. Scott Fitzgerald published America's favorite novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Great Gatsby\u003c\/i\u003e, at the young age of twenty-eight. Despite this extraordinary early achievement, Fitzgerald finished just one novel in the next (and last) fifteen years of his life, ending as a mostly unemployed Hollywood screenwriter. \u003ci\u003eTaking Things Hard\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the story behind the now-iconic \u003ci\u003eGatsby\u003c\/i\u003e, along with Fitzgerald's struggle to write anything that matched its brilliance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eA Fresh Biographical Perspective on Fitzgerald's Career\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRobert R. Garnett's new biographical study of Fitzgerald's life and work begins by constructing a portrait of the young man who would wholly and uniquely pour himself into writing \u003ci\u003eGatsby\u003c\/i\u003e. In the years following its publication, Fitzgerald continued penning stories, some of them among his finest, yet it took him nine years to complete another novel. The downward trajectory of his career had interweaving causes, among them arrogance, irresponsibility, his troubled marriage to Zelda Sayre, financial improvidence, and a destructive alcoholism. At the root of it all, though, lingered the simple fact that Fitzgerald's most intense and profound experiences had come early, during his truncated undergraduate years at Princeton and the months following his February 1919 discharge from the army.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eUnderstanding the Sources of Fitzgerald's Fiction\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTaking Things Hard\u003c\/i\u003e provides a fresh look at the imaginative sources of Fitzgerald's fiction and considers the elements, drawn from the keen impressions and salient emotions of its author's youth, that make \u003ci\u003eGatsby\u003c\/i\u003e a book that still speaks powerfully to readers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRobert R. Garnett\u003c\/b\u003e is professor emeritus of English at Gettysburg College. His previous books include \u003ci\u003eCharles Dickens in Love\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eFrom Grimes to Brideshead: The Early Novels of Evelyn Waugh\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LSU Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50680372560146,"sku":"9780807179345","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_cc4bd539-9259-441e-bb52-73e0ff7bd37f.jpg?v=1734905781","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/taking-things-hard-the-trials-of-f-scott-fitzgerald-9780807179345","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}