Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby

'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.'--Kirkus (STARRED review) 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