Babylon Revisited: Like his classic novel The Great Gatsby this story is set in the Jazz Age and much is based on Fitzgeralds own experiences.

Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Narrated by Christopher Ragland and Ghizela Rowe

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota into an upper-middle class family. Whilst his mother was pregnant with him, his two young sisters tragically died. Fitzgerald once said this was when his destiny as a writer was ordained.

His intelligence and talent was recognised from an early age, with his first story, about a detective being published in the school magazine when he was just 13.

In 1913 he enrolled at Princeton but his devotion to his own literary pursuits resulted in him leaving and, rather bizarrely, joining the Army. In 1918, stationed at Fort Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama he met and became infatuated and then inseparable from Zelda Sayre. Initially though she refused to marry him but with the success of ‘This Side of Paradise’, the fame and the flow of money enabled them both to begin a gilded life. For them this was The Jazz Age. For Fitzgerald he was already an alcoholic.

He continued to write with great mastery and the titles of his novels and many of his 164 short stories are household names. The Great Gatsby, often cited as The Great American Novel was published to mixed reviews. As America moved from the Great Depression to the slaughter of the Second World War his works and himself were seen as far too entwined with the decadent twenties. The world had moved on and he hadn’t.

Further tragedy was never far from his life. Zelda after years of erratic and now intolerable behaviour was committed to an institution in 1936. His own sales began to decline and he became a hack for hire in Hollywood, dependent on increasing amounts of booze and the weekly pay check. His drunken state had often resulted in arrest or hospitalisation, further imperiling his talents. Despite his contribution to many MGM films he received only one credit.

The end came all too soon for one of America’s greatest ever writers. On 21st December 1940, at only 44 years of age in Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald succumbed to a heart attack.

In this bittersweet story of a man who enjoyed the boom years of la dolce vita and now, in more straitened times, is unable to get what he really wants; the custody of his daughter. He returns to Paris to meet the ghosts of those good times and to make amends for his past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: Aug 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803543994

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota to Edward and Mary Fitzgerald, he was raised in Buffalo in a middle-class Catholic family. Fitzgerald excelled in school from a young age and was known as an active and curious student, primarily of literature. In 1908 the family returned to St. Paul, where Fitzgerald published his first work of fiction, a detective story, at the age of 13. He completed his high school education at the Newman School in New Jersey before enrolling at Princeton University. In 1917, reeling from an ill-fated relationship and waning in his academic pursuits, Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton to join the Army. While stationed in Alabama, he began a relationship with Zelda Sayre, a Montgomery socialite. In 1919, he moved to New York City, where he struggled to launch his career as a writer. His first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), was a resounding success, earning Fitzgerald a sustainable income and allowing him to marry Zelda. Following the birth of his daughter Scottie in 1921, Fitzgerald published his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), and Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), a collection of short stories. His rising reputation in New York’s social and literary scenes coincided with a growing struggle with alcoholism and the deterioration of Zelda’s mental health. Despite this, Fitzgerald managed to complete his masterpiece The Great Gatsby (1925), a withering portrait of corruption and decay at the heart of American society. After living for several years in France in Italy, the end of the decade marked the decline of Fitzgerald’s reputation as a writer, forcing him to move to Hollywood in pursuit of work as a screenwriter. His alcoholism accelerated in these last years, leading to severe heart problems and eventually his death at the age of 44. By this time, he was virtually forgotten by the public, but critical reappraisal and his influence on such writers as Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, and Richard Yates would ensure his status as one of the greatest figures in twentieth-century American fiction.

Reviews for Babylon Revisited

[Kathleen Toerpe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A poignant story about a father who is trying to regain custody of his daughter from his sister in law. The story is set in 1930, with flashbacks to the Roaring 20s.

Before the stock market crash of 1929, Charlie Wales and his wife were part of Paris’s free-spending, boozy party scene. After the crash, Charlie’s wife dies, he suffers financial losses, and he loses custody of his daughter due to his alcoholism. After getting back on his feet and cutting back on his drinking, he returns to Paris to persuade his wife’s sister and her husband that he has changed his ways and can be trusted again.

The writing is classic F. Scott Fitzgerald. With a few deft strokes and well-chosen scenes, he evokes the personal and emotional impact of the Jazz Age and its aftermath.