Gatsby's Girl by Caroline Preston

I'm proud to be a Fitzgerald nut. In high school I gobbled up The Great Gatsby and proceeded to read everything that was ever written by him. I even read Zelda's interesting novel and her letters to Scott. Whoa.

So I gobbled up this fictionalized account of Ginerva, the girl who Scott loved and lost when he was in college. Ginerva was the basis for many of the fickle girls in his novels and short stories, and this account makes everything seem really believable. Ginerva really did meet Zelda years later at the Chicago World's Fair and Scott really did have all of Ginerva's letters bound so he could save them. Weird.

I recommend this to any Fitzgerald lover which means any Jazz Age lover. I also found the Chicago references interesting since I recognized a lot of the places Ginerva visits. The paperback copy of the book I read included a reader's guide in the back with discussion questions.