In the summer of 1918, he was stationed in Alabama at Camp Sheridan. There he met Eighteen year old Zelda Sayre, the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court Judge. He fell in love and asked her to marry him, but she refused because of his lack of ambition and fortune. If he had any ambition, it was inherited from his Grandfather McQuillan, and if he wanted something badly enough, he would work very hard to achieve it. He was determined to be famous so he went to New York to work on his writing. F. Scott Fitzgerald was considered to be the best at capturing the setting of the 1920s. His novel The Great Gatsby, was historically complete if not a personal account of his own life. The publication of This Side of Paradise, made him instantly famous. It also succeeded in changing Zelda’s mind, and on Aril 20, 1920, they were married. They bore one child, a girl named Frances Scott but were unable to maintain a home for her. She went to boarding school and used family friends as surrogate parents.
The Fitzgeralds lived the high life. They