The Crack-Up

Edmund Wilson, Fitzgerald’s lifelong friend, compiled the book after the writer’s death in 1940, and New Directions published it in 1945. Three essays originally printed in Esquire in 1936 give it the title, and Fitzgerald wrote them while suffering a nervous breakdown he called emotional bankruptcy. Other pieces range from Jazz Age reflections to notebook entries. Blondel quotes one line from it, about seeing that things are hopeless and still being determined to change them.