Save Me the Waltz

By: Zelda Fitzgerald

Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck

Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender Is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work. In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story: the confessions of a famous, slightly doomed glamour girl of the affluent 1920s, which captures the spirit of an era.

©1932 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Copyright renewed 1960 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan. (P)2013 Audible Inc.

masterpiece

An absolutely stunning story. I love it. Going to read again. it's too bad her husband took all the credit for her writing. she was a fabulous writer

A Hot Mess, But Enlightening

The writing is all over the place, and has so many metaphors that you tend to lose track of where you are. But through it all, you can see the woman who inspired the memories of a generation.

Thinly Disguised Autobiography

What did you like best about Save Me the Waltz? What did you like least?

While researching the lives of Jazz Age flappers, I found that listening to the work of one would be helpful in understanding her better. This held true for Save Me the Waltz, as it is a barely disguised autobiography of her life married to F. Scott Fitzgerald. However, her prose is often stuffed with superfluous images and nonsensical similes and metaphors.

What about Jennifer Van Dyck’s performance did you like?

Jennifer Van Dyck's performance was agreeable. None of it bothered me but it was nothing remarkable.

Was Save Me the Waltz worth the listening time?

This was worth listening to from a researcher's point of view--not as someone looking for an engaging story.

Audio is a great platform for Zelda's writing--

Jennifer Van Dyck did a wonderful job; this is not a simple book, and I never felt tangled in metaphors or lost by the many accents she had to juggle. Only four stars because her choice of voice for Alabama had to grow on me, and Bonnie's never exactly grew on me at all, but a real consistent read!

There's more to be said for Zelda Fitzgerald than I am going to be able to fit into this review but this book touches the same place in my heart that "The Bell Jar" does-- vivid imagery and language used to detail a young woman's breakdown. Zelda in her lifetime never got the recognition for this work that she very much deserved. It is a good book which can become convoluted on the page alone, and I thought audio was an excellent medium to really bring the narrative into its best experience.

Gorgeous and Underrated

If you can stomach the sexist 1960s introduction by some professor and give the narrative a chance, you’ll find the prose to be lively and vivid, like the dialogue of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novels, which sometimes drew directly from Zelda’s letters. The story is romantic, international, and obviously all the more fascinating for being fairly autobiographical.