The Last Tycoon – Fitzgerald Francis Scott (2015)

Unfinished at the time of his death, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon is a story of doomed love set against the extravagance of America’s booming film industry. On the studio lot, described as “thirty acres of fairyland,” a mysterious woman smiles at Monroe Stahr, the last of the great Hollywood princes. Enchanted by one another, they begin a passionate but hopeless love affair, starting with a fast-moving seduction as polished as a scene from one of Stahr’s pictures. The romance unfolds under the watchful eye of Cecilia, a thoroughly modern girl who has learned her lessons in sentiment and cynicism from the films she has seen. Her buoyant humour and satirical eye complement Fitzgerald’s panorama of Hollywood at its most lavish and bewitching. Fitzgerald has acquired a mythical status in American literary history, and The Great Gatsby is considered by many to be the “great American novel.” He wrote five novels, including This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned, Tender Is the Night and The Last Tycoon, as well as numerous short stories. If you enjoyed The Last Tycoon, you might also enjoy The Beautiful and the Damned.