Careless People

Kirkus (STARRED review) "Churchwell... has written an excellent book... she’s earned the right to play on [Fitzgerald's] court. Prodigious research and fierce affection illumine every remarkable page.” The autumn of 1922 found F. Scott Fitzgerald at the height of his fame, days from turning twenty-six years old, and returning to New York for the publication of his fourth book, Tales of the Jazz Age. A spokesman for America’s carefree younger generation, Fitzgerald found a home in the glamorous and reckless streets of New York. Here, in the final incredible months of 1922, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald drank and quarreled and partied amid financial scandals, literary milestones, car crashes, and celebrity disgraces. Yet the Fitzgeralds’ triumphant return to New York coincided with another event: the discovery of a brutal double murder in nearby New Jersey, a crime made all the more horrible by the farce of a police investigation—which failed to accomplish anything beyond generating enormous publicity for the newfound celebrity participants. Proclaimed the “crime of the decade” even as its proceedings dragged on for years, the Mills-Hall murder has been wholly forgotten today. But the enormous impact of this bizarre crime can still be felt in The Great Gatsby, a novel Fitzgerald began planning that autumn of 1922 and whose plot he ultimately set within that fateful year. Careless People is a unique literary investigation: a gripping double narrative that combines a forensic search for clues to an unsolved crime and a quest for the roots of America’s best loved novel. Overturning much of the received wisdom of the period, Careless People blends biography and history with lost newspaper accounts, letters, and newly discovered archival materials. With great wit and insight, acclaimed scholar of American literature Sarah Churchwell reconstructs the events of that pivotal autumn, revealing in the process new ways of thinking about Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. Interweaving the biographical story of the Fitzgeralds with the unfolding investigation into the murder of Hall and Mills, Careless People is a thrilling combination of literary history and murder mystery, a mesmerizing journey into the dark heart of Jazz Age America.

Ebook edition includes full text of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail its relation to the extravagant, scandalous, and chaotic world in which the author lived. With wit and insight, Sarah Churchwell traces the genesis of a masterpiece, mapping where fiction comes from, and how it takes shape in the mind of a genius. Careless People tells the extraordinary tale of how F. Scott Fitzgerald created a classic and in the process discovered modern America.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

McKnight shows how the experts' best efforts to rebuild and revitalize communities can actually destroy them and celebrates the ability of neighborhoods to heal from within.

Originally published: London: Virago, 2013

“Exceptional. . . . Intelligent, surprising, sexy, funny, compassionate and wise.”—Washington Post From #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George, a stunning mystery featuring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley that explores the perfect crime. After the senseless murder of his pregnant wife, Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley hands in his badge and walks out of Scotland Yard. He goes home to Cornwall. The only way he can deal with his painful memories is to hike the trails over the cliffs of the Cornish coast. There, on the forty-third day of his walk, he finds the lifeless body of a young man, dead from a fall. Thus begins a quest to unmask a clever and ruthless murderer. But this time, Lynley’s not in charge. He’s a witness—and possibly even a suspect. The vastly understaffed local copper in charge of the investigation soon figures out that Lynley can help. So can his former associate Barbara Havers, whom Scotland Yard sends to Cornwall, ostensibly to assist in the investigation, but unofficially to keep an eye on Lynley and maybe lure him back to his job.

Presents the text of Alice Walker's story "Everyday Use"; contains background essays that provide insight into the story; and features a selection of critical response. Includes a chronology and an interview with the author.

Evoking the Jazz-Age world that would later appear in his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, this essential Fitzgerald collection contains some of the writer’s most famous and celebrated stories. In “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” an extraordinary child is born an old man, growing younger as the world ages around him. “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” a fable of excess and greed, shows two boarding school classmates mired in deception as they make their fortune in gemstones. And in the classic novella “May Day,” debutantes dance the night away as war veterans and socialists clash in the streets of New York. Opening the book is a playful and irreverent set of notes from the author, documenting the real-life pressures and experiences that shaped these stories, from his years at Princeton to his cravings for luxury to the May Day Riots of 1919. Taken as a whole, this collection brings to vivid life the dazzling excesses, stunning contrasts, and simmering unrest of a glittering era. Its 1922 publication furthered Fitzgerald's reputation as a master storyteller, and its legacy staked his place as the spokesman of an age.