The Last Tycoon

F. Scott Fitzgerald's final novel, left uncompleted because of the author's death, tells the story of Monroe Stahr, a hotshot Hollywood producer facing his mortality and longing for a second chance at love. The Hollywood sections, which were informed by the time Fitzgerald spent as a screenwriter, are wonderful, featuring the snappy dialogue and fast pace of a screwball comedy from the 40s. The prose in the romantic parts is a bit overheated and sappy, but no doubt that would have been improved by the author had he lived. A brilliant scene near the end, in which three children encounter the wreckage of a plane crash, makes me ache to read the novel that will never be.