I glad[ly] submit to anything you want about the book or anything else…However, I would like you to thoroughly understand that my revision will be made on an aesthetic basis: that the other material which I will select is nevertheless legitimate stuff that has cost me a pretty emotional penny to amass and which I intend to use when I can get the tranquility of spirit necessary to write the story of myself versus myself.” French identity cards for the Fitzgeralds circa 1929, the year in which Zelda's mental health deteriorated. She talked with so spontaneous a color and wit — almost exactly in the way that she wrote — that I very soon ceased to be troubled by the fact that the conversation was in the nature of the free association of ideas and one could never follow up anything. I have rarely known a woman who expressed herself so delightfully and freshly; she had no ready-made phrases on the one hand and made no straining for effect on the other.” Tate, Mary Jo (1998) [1997], F. Scott Fitzgerald A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work, New York: Facts On File, ISBN 0-8160-3150-9– via Internet Archive

Alabama grows further apart from her husband and their daughter. Determined to be famous, an aging Alabama aspires to become a renowned prima ballerina and devotes herself relentlessly to this ambition. She is offered an opportunity to dance featured parts with a prestigious company in Naples—and she takes it, and goes to live in the city alone. Alabama dances her solo debut in the opera Faust. However, a blister soon becomes infected from the glue in the box of her pointe shoe, leading to blood poisoning, and Alabama can never dance again. Though outwardly successful, Alabama and David are miserable. Its publication did not ease any of the tensions between the Fitzgeralds. Zelda wanted to continue to write, while Scott told her she was “a third-rate writer and a third-rate ballet dancer … I am a professional writer, with a huge following. I am the highest-paid short story writer in the world.” Alabama Beggs is a Southern belle who makes her début into adulthood with wild parties, dancing and drinking, and flirting with the young officers posted to her hometown during World War I. When Lieutenant David Knight arrives to join her line of suitors, Alabama marries him—and their life in New York, Paris, and the South of France closely mirrors the Fitzgeralds' own life and their prominent socializing in the 1920s and 1930s. In Paris, Alabama becomes fixated on becoming a prima ballerina and refuses to accept that she might not become the great dancer that she longs to be, threatening her mental health and her marriage. Zelda wanted desperately to be taken seriously as a writer, and for the first time wanted her work to be evaluated on its own merits, without her husband’s intervention, opinion, or the use of his name.She installed a large mirror and a barre at home where, in addition to the time spent at the studio, she would practice for hours. Scott, on the other hand, didn’t appreciate Zelda doing the same thing. While his side of the correspondence has been lost, he must have sent Zelda a curt reply to her explanatory letter, because, in her next letter to him, Zelda wrote: Forty years after its publication, Zelda's biographer Nancy Milford speculated in 1970 that F. Scott Fitzgerald extensively rewrote Zelda's novel prior to publication. [11] This supposition was echoed by later biographers. [12] However, scholarly examinations of Zelda's earlier drafts of Save Me the Waltz and the published version disproved this speculation. [13] Nearly every revision was by Zelda and, contrary to Milford's biography, her husband did not rewrite the manuscript. [14]

People are like almanacs, Bonnie—you can never find the information you’re looking for, but the casual reading is well worth the trouble.” – David Knight, Save Me the Waltz Purposely I didn’t — knowing that you were working on your own and honestly feeling that I had no right to interrupt you to ask for a serious opinion. Also, I know that Max will not want it and I prefer to do the corrections after having his opinion … By Spring of 1932, Zelda Fitzgerald had been a recurrent patient of several psychiatric institutions. After an episode of hysteria, Zelda insisted that she be readmitted to a mental hospital. [2] Over her husband's objections, [2] Zelda was admitted to the Phipps Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on February 12, 1932. [2] Her treatment was overseen by Dr. Adolf Meyer, an expert on schizophrenia. [20] As part of her recovery routine, she spent at least two hours a day writing a novel. [3] Save Me the Waltz was republished by Southern Illinois Press in 1967 (it required some 550 spelling and grammar corrections), and then again by the University of Alabama in 1991 in The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald.There have also been more scholarly explorations of Zelda’s work, including The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald by Deborah Pike, which takes Zelda out of her husband’s shadow and places her work alongside other female writers and painters of the time such as Leonora Carrington. Daniel, Anne Margaret (August 25, 2021), "The Odd Couple: John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald", The Spectator, London, United Kingdom , retrieved December 27, 2021 Published in October of 1932, Save Me the Waltz is part memoir and part bildungsroman, a semi-autobiographical account of Zelda Fitzgerald’s marriage to novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. Her only published novel, Save Me the Waltz follows the life of Southern belle Alabama Beggs and her marriage to artist David Knight. Zelda also faced challenges in the ballet studio. In her mid-twenties, she was too old to achieve her dream of becoming a prima ballerina, but she could still have made a career out of it had her health not failed. Alabama sees both her sisters experience heartbreak as their father disapproves of their suitors of choice. Alabama, still young but eager to grow older, paints her face, dances ballet, and hopes to marry a man from New York and move to the big city someday. By the time Alabama is almost eighteen, the war has been going on for a few years. She has a reputation in town for being a flirt and for inappropriate behavior, kissing officers and getting drunk. She falls in love with one of her many beaux, a lieutenant called David Knight. David wants to move to New York and be an artist, and believes he will be famous one day. Alabama loves him, but does not like it when he speaks of his success and how he will maintain her.