a book
Tender Is the Night: A Novel
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1995 · 317 pages
A modern classic, this edition has been restored by Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III and features a personal foreword by Fitzgerald’s great-granddaughter Blake Hazard and a new introduction by bestselling Amor Towles.
Set in the south of France in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic tale of a young actress, Rosemary Hoyt, and her complicated relationship with the alluring American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth pushed him into a glamorous lifestyle, and whose growing strength highlights Dick’s decline.
Lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative, Tender Is the Night was one of the most talked-about books of the year when it was originally published in 1934, and is even more beloved by readers today.
Set in the south of France in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic tale of a young actress, Rosemary Hoyt, and her complicated relationship with the alluring American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth pushed him into a glamorous lifestyle, and whose growing strength highlights Dick’s decline.
Lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative, Tender Is the Night was one of the most talked-about books of the year when it was originally published in 1934, and is even more beloved by readers today.
recommended by 8 people
sourced from public statements
Twinkle Khanna
“"Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald - it’s the only book I remember multiple quotes from :) https://t.co/f2P1QHp2ej"”↗
Cate Blanchett
“This novel was handed to me on a silver platter by my husband, who said, “You cannot die without reading this.” I keep coming back to it because it’s so detailed in recording the inner life of Dick Diver, the central character. His yearning—to save his mentally unstable wife, Nicole—just keeps unfolding. That aching is quite destructive but also so understandable. The word I think of with this story is ‘fragile.’ I was utterly struck by the fineness of Fitzgerald’s writing and the timelessness of Dick and Nicole’s failures.”↗
Gene Wilder
“Primarily a psychological tangle, this story is about a doctor who helps a seriously neurotic young woman, and they fall in love and marry. He ends up a wreck and she ends up quite sane and normal. It’s very moving.”↗
Julianne Moore
“The romance in this novel is so distinct, so interesting, and so surprising because it’s so flawed. The couple – Dick and Nicole Diver – are gorgeous. You believe they’re perfect, and then you find out that, in fact, they are deeply troubled – she especially. Dick rescues Nicole for a time, but he can’t save her; she’s too unstable. So they don’t make it – they can’t. It’s an exquisite and unbearable love story.”↗
Peter Hook
“It just goes to show how complicated love is and, in a funny way, how you can love more than one person at one time. It’s a terrible story of temptation, foolishness and the fickleness of men in a wonderful setting, the South Of France, which suits it perfectly. There’s strong women characters and it’s wound up being the only book I’ve re-read many times. You end up being dragged into the middle of a terrible situation and I’m always struck by the predicament the central character finds himself in. It tuned into me and I’ve actually used it to write two songs, Leave Me Alone by New Order and Tender Is The Night by Monaco so that’s how much of an effect it had on me.”↗
Carson Mccullers
“…Another lesser writer who is also dear to me. Scott Fitzgerald, always in debt to his agent; with a wife that was mad and confined to institutions. Scott, extravagant, [lovable,] playful and impossible. His genius flourished, and he wrote [Tender is the Night,] in the most appalling psychological situation.”↗
