The Love of the Last Tycoon: The Authorized Text Book

I'm not precisely sure why this book effected me the way it did, but it certainly did. Fitzgerald finished writing the fifth chapter of this book before he had a heart attack and died. When you get to the end of this unfinished novel, you find the last word one of the greatest American writers ever wrote. Something about this is chilling. And despite the fact that one can not make any substantial investment in characters who we know in advance we'll never know completely or whose stories we won't ever realize; there is something in the simplistic and honest quality of this novel that pits it amongst Fitzgerald's greats. He himself said in his notes and letters to friends that he had no fear in writing this novel and that it was to most resemble Gatsby, but in a new way. He wanted to expose things to people in nuanced ways.

My version came with the author's original outline and plot synopsis so you can piece together the original intention; but what is really important is what you get: a concise look at the small chances of love in big people. Calamity in the real world. What you get is Fitzgerald's last hurrah; his final statement. What you get, is a novel that could have been, and is enough.