On this edition of ST, we chat with author Stewart O'Nan about his latest book, "West of Sunset," which is just out in paperback. It's a novel that imagines the final years of F. Scott Fitzgerald's life, when he was living and working in Hollywood in the 1930s...and trying, more or less in vain, to re-capture the literary greatness of his earlier years. As was noted of this work by The New Yorker Magazine: "O'Nan's adroitness with atmosphere and period detail makes Fitzgerald's dreams of creating worthy work, even with his best days behind him, absorbing and poignant." And further, per The Boston Globe: "A mesmerizing and haunting novel.... O’Nan delivers -- whole-body -- the sensation that you are deep inside a living, breathing, suffering consciousness.... Another triumph of the novel surfaces in O'Nan's wily insinuation into Fitzgerald's creative life, how it breathes through his everyday existence. Movingly and believingly, the manner in which a writer works -- thinks, processes, assimilates, envies -- is given life. And that is ultimately what makes the book so special." Also on today's program, our commentator Barry Friedman offers an essay on "Old Men and Glasses."
A Novel Imagines Scott Fitzgerald's Life in Hollywood: "West of Sunset" by Stewart O'Nan
