A fantastic reading at Common Good Books in St. Paul, Minnesota on 1/21!
Photos from St. Paul, Minnesota
Stewart was in St. Paul, Minnesota yesterday, the birthplace of F. Scott Fitzgerald. A few pictures from his visit follow. Photos courtesy Tim Hedges of Around the Town Agency.
Stewart O’Nan chats about F. Scott Fitzgerald and ‘West of Sunset’
From the L.A. Times:
Stewart O’Nan chats about F. Scott Fitzgerald and ‘West of Sunset’
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s legacy has become synonymous with the glamour of the Jazz Age and the success of “The Great Gatsby.” His complicated life with wife Zelda has become the stuff of myth, portrayed in numerous biographies and novels.
However, during the last three years of his life, Fitzgerald was a troubled man in poor health, his wife consigned to a mental asylum and his finances in ruin. It was also during this period in time that Fitzgerald strove to make a new start as a Hollywood screenwriter.
Stewart O’Nan’s novel “West of Sunset” (Viking, 304 pp., $27.95) offers a glimpse into this time in Fitzgerald’s life as he arrives on the MGM lot, falls in love with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, struggles with his addiction to alcohol, works on “The Last Tycoon” — all while trying to maintain a semblance of family normalcy with Zelda and their daughter, Scottie.
O’Nan chatted about the book by phone from his Pittsburgh home. He will be discussing his book at Diesel Bookstore in Brentwood on Jan. 27 at 6:30 p.m. and at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena on Jan. 28 at 7 p.m.
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West of Sunset in O Magazine and Elle
West of Sunset has been named as one of the “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” in O Magazine for January 2015!
West of Sunset is also featured in this month’s Elle Magazine — The Elle’s Lettres 2015 Readers’ Prize!
Also, Stewart will be at University Club tonight for two events:
A Reception with Stewart O’Nan
Start: 01/21/2015 5:30 pm
End: 01/21/2015 6:30 pm
Before his public reading, join Stewart O’Nan for a private reception–limited to 20 people–at the University Club. Reception admission includes a copy of O’Nan’s new novel, delicious appetizers, and a cash bar. Proceeds benefit Fitzgerald in Saint Paul. Reservations and payment are required in advance. To reserve your spot, contact Stu Wilson at stu@fitzgeraldinsaintpaul.org or call 651-253-3231.
Stewart O’Nan reads from “West of Sunset” at the University Club
Start: 01/21/2015 7:00 pm
University Club
420 Summit Ave
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102
Reviews of West of Sunset from The Boston Globe and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
‘West of Sunset’ by Stewart O’Nan
By Ted Weesner
How, in Fitzgerald’s own words, did he crack up? And why has no one dramatically gone to this fertile place before? Thankfully, in his 15th novel, “West of Sunset,” Stewart O’Nan has inserted himself into this fecund mess and rather shockingly — at least for this formerly historical-fiction-phobic reviewer — exits with a mesmerizing and haunting novel of his own.
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‘West of Sunset’: Pittsburgh’s Stewart O’Nan tells a sympathetic tale of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final years in Hollywood
By Eileen Weiner
With each new novel, the prolific and protean Stewart O’Nan surprises us again. Through his seemingly limitless imagination, we have come to know, and to care about, a woman on Oklahoma’s death row with a tale to tell; the oddball crew working the final night at a failing Red Lobster in Connecticut; a paralyzed African-American teenager and his struggling community in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty; and an 80-year-old Pittsburgh widow confronting the travails of aging and loneliness.
Despite wildly different tones and approaches, the Pittsburgh writer’s books are united by his compassion for his characters and careful attention to the details that define and reveal their lives and souls.
These traits are much in evidence in the author’s latest surprise, a biographical novel about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last years, when he was desperately trying to halt the downward spiral of his professional and personal lives by working as a scriptwriter in Hollywood.
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The Works of Stewart O'Nan 