The Last Tycoon

The Hollywood of the 1930s is a constantly spinning Ferris wheel of business, alcohol, and promiscuity – and a complete lack of morals. Film mogul Monroe Stahr's mode outwardly reflects the industry; he is a cynical workaholic who rarely leaves the studio before eleven o'clock. One evening, a mysterious woman stands before him and smiles. It is the beginning of a passionate, yet hopeless, love story. The seduction scene is like something out of one of Stahr's films, and thereafter the story unfolds frame by frame – observed by Cecilia, daughter of Stahr's business partner: a girl who has carefully studied the classic narrative techniques of film. The Last Tycoon takes place during the extravagant heyday of Hollywood. This posthumous novel, never completed, became F. Scott Fitzgerald's final, poignant farewell to the great American dream. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD [1896-1940] was an American author, born in St. Paul, Minnesota. His legendary marriage to Zelda Montgomery, along with their acquaintances with notable figures such as Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, and their lifestyle in 1920s Paris, has become iconic. A master of the short story genre, it is logical that his most famous novel is also his shortest: The Great Gatsby [1925].