Despite their celebrated status, the Fitzgeralds’ domestic life was plagued with hardships. Throughout their marriage, the two went through periods of heavy alcohol consumption. Although Fitzgerald wrote sober, he drank more and more frequently and excessively. Drinking was also a factor in the Fitzgeralds’ frequent fights. In some scholars’ opinions, stories of Scott’s drinking earned him the reputation for an “irresponsible writer,” which kept him from being taken seriously by the literary community. The Fitzgerald’s marriage was also plagued by financial difficulties. Although This Side of Paradise did well, the follow-up novel did not meet the same success. In order to maintain their extravagant lifestyle, Scott spent much time working on short stories that ran in widely distributed magazines.
Another major obstacle to the Fitzgeralds’ domestic happiness came to light in 1930, when Zelda experienced her first of three mental breakdowns. Although she had been troubled during much of their marriage, by 1930, Zelda’s condition had worsened such that she was institutionalized. This breakdown left her in various care facilities in France and Switzerland from April 1930 to September 1931. She suffered a second breakdown less than six months later in February 1932, resulting in four months’ hospitalization in the United States. Zelda’s third breakdown, which occurred in January 1934, left her institutionalized until her death in a fire at her last hospital in 1948.
Although he remained married to Zelda until the end, her mental illness redefined their marriage. Zelda required more care than Scott could give, and so he worked hard to keep her comfortably hospitalized (in fact, many of the couple’s later debts resulted from Zelda’s institutionalization). Scott eventually met and fell in love with Sheilah Graham, a movie columnist, with whom he spent the last few years of his life. Graham’s support and encouragement helped put Scott’s stalling career back onto the path of creative productivity.
