The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (✰✰✰✰)

The Beautiful and Damned was Fitzgerald’s second book, published in 1922, following his debut, This Side of Paradise, published in 1920. Unlike most writers, Fitzgerald was an instant success, but he really hit his stride in 1925 with the publication of his most famous — and some say his best — novel, The Great Gatsby is definitely the first book any reader should explore of Fitzgerald’s four novels, but I feel like The Beautiful and Damned is well worth the read. 

Like Gatsby, The Beautiful and Damned is set during the era that Fitzgerald popularized as The Jazz Age. Its story is, in many ways, reflective of the early marriage and lifestyle of Fitzgerald and his wife and perhaps illustrates a subconscious fear of what might become of them. The novel’s main characters, Anthony and Gloria Patch, watch their friends find success and happiness while they themselves wallow in indolence and overspending as they wait for his grandfather to die and leave them an inheritance. The novel follows the effect this lifestyle has on their lives and relationship.

Fitzgerald’s final novel, Tender is the Night, published in 1934, was semi-autobiographical, but I feel that reading The Beautiful and Damned is invaluable for setting the scene and shedding light on the events preceding those in Tender is the Night. Together, the two novels present a portrait of how life-destroying Fitzgerald viewed the excesses of the Jazz Age and give a fictionalized account of his own marriage.

Had I read this novel in print, it would most likely have been a five star read for me. The narrator of the audio I listened to, William Dufris, was really not to my taste. While there is no doubt that Gloria was irresponsible and the architect of her own problems, Dufris’s voicing of her character was nothing short of grating, as were his portrayals of most of the female leads. All of the women came across as whiney little girls. I did not feel he did much better with the men, presenting all of them as brainless, despite their Ivy League educations and the success of most of them. There are numerous recordings of this novel; I highly urge going with a different narrator than Dufris.