By Kevin Nance , Special for USA TODAY

Is anything more poignant than genius in decline? It’s hard to imagine after reading West of Sunset, Stewart O’Nan’s almost unbearably bittersweet portrait of the once-great novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald’s sad yet darkly glittering final years in Hollywood.

[more]

Stewart O’Nan read everything F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, including his love letters to his wife, Zelda, for his new novel based on the writer’s last few years. “We think of Fitzgerald as a tragic writer, but he’s very ironic and wry,” he says. O’Nan was in town last week to read from his new novel, “West of Sunset.”

BOOKS: What are you reading currently?

O’NAN: I’m reading “The Most of It” by the poet Mary Ruefle. This book is sort of prose poetry. She writes like Lydia Davis: skewed, small short stories. I’m a big Davis fan. I love Russell Edson, too, a prose poet guy in the ’70s, who’s kind of absurdist. I always go back to the surrealists, too. I like anyone who’s making something goofy and whacky.

[more]

Stewart will be at Books Inc. tonight in Alameda, CA!