The first book-length study of Prototype Flapper Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of Jazz Age Laureate F. Scott Fitzgerald, in over twenty years (since Nancy Milford's 1970 biography, "Zelda"), this is the poignant tale of a young, gifted Southern Belle from a prominant Montgomery, Alabama family, driven to mental disintegration as the result of a marriage promoted by the media's lure for the attainment of the American Dream for Women - a luxurious life of leisure afforded by a prosperous husband. Interviews with friends and relatives of the Fitzgeralds' (including their only child, Scottie), as well as with Zelda's last psychiatrist, illuminate this tragedy and suggest how the untimely demise of both Fitzgeralds might have been prevented.