Tender is the Night

The most poignantly autobiographical of Fitzgerald’s novels, Tender is the Night reflects not only on Fitzgerald’s own personal tragedies but on the moral and psychological decline he observed in contemporary society.

F Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘beautiful novel about failure’ explores the marriage of Dick and Nicole Diver, a glamorous, wealthy couple who hold court to fellow Americans at their villa in the south of France. The most celebrated of these is Rosemary Hoyt, the film star, who falls in love with Dick at first glance, but detects nothing of the dark undercurrents in the Divers’ marriage. As Dick becomes more infatuated with Rosemary his relationship with Nicole falters. Slowly the lustre of their life together begins to tarnish, and the dissolution begins.