Great Zelda's Ghost

A not-so-restful stay at a house that's steeped in literary spirit

- RICK BRAGG

ABOUT A YEAR AGO, I won an award named for F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose The Great Gatsby remains one of America's most enduring novels. It was presented in an outdoor ceremony at The Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. 

"You can even spend the night in the house," said Daron Harris, who phoned from the historic home to tell me the good news.

What person who even pretends to call himself a writer would balk at an invitation like that, to lay his head under the roof where both F. Scott and Zelda wrote, where they clinked glasses and talked of zeppelins, ocean liners, and Paris cafes? I remember thinking at the time, "What could possibly go wrong?" But Harris, whose job is to spread the word about this landmark, warned that its past was not all Champagne and roses.

F. Scott and Zelda had lived, at times, a volatile existence, and it was believed that an uneasy spirit resided within those walls.