"A stunning, utterly captivating read. Another Side of Paradise delivers an unforgettable portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sheilah Graham, a remarkable couple steeped in all the glamour, romance, and intrigue of old Hollywood. Their wild ride of a love affair is one for the ages!" -- Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of The Kitchen House and Glory Over Everything
A novel based on the true story of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his longtime mistress, Sheilah Graham--an unforgettable tale of love, celebrity, and Gatsby-esque self-creation in 1930s Hollywood.
In 1937 Hollywood, gossip columnist Sheilah Graham´s star is on the rise, while literary wonder boy F. Scott Fitzgerald´s career is slowly drowning in booze. But the once-famous author, desperate to make money penning scripts for the silver screen, is charismatic enough to attract the gorgeous Miss Graham, a woman who exposes the secrets of others while carefully guarding her own. Like Fitzgerald´s hero Jay Gatsby, Graham has meticulously constructed a life far removed from the poverty of her childhood in London´s slums. And like Gatsby, the onetime guttersnipe learned early how to use her charms to become a hardworking success; she is feted and feared by both the movie studios and their luminaries.
A notorious drunk famously married to the doomed Zelda, Fitzgerald fell hard for his "Shielah" (he never learned to spell her name), a shrewd yet softhearted woman--both a fool for love and nobody´s fool--who would stay with him and help revive his career until his tragic death three years later. Working from Sheilah´s memoirs, interviews, and letters, Sally Koslow revisits their scandalous love affair and Graham´s dramatic transformation in London, bringing Graham and Fitzgerald gloriously to life with the color, glitter, magic, and passion of 1930s Hollywood.