Tender is the Night, Book I

I just finished book one and for some reason I hadn't realized that Nicole, Dick's wife, was going to be the crazy woman in the story. I had read the introduction that was pretty lengthy and spoke of a doctor taking care of his mentally ill wife, but as I read the novel I assumed Rosemary was falling into mental illness and that her and Dick would end up together. Rosemary hints at having developing issues, she begins taking pills that are never fully described and she says she's going crazy falling in love with Dick, she starts to have sleeping problems, and seems so young and not ready for the affair her and Dick are headed for. Meanwhile, Nicole is portrayed as a Greek Goddess, perfect in every way, certainly nothing could be wrong with her. This put me at ease with their inevitable split, she would survive and move on, and maybe move upward.

Fitzgerald weaves the story in such a manner that even though there are children involved you don't worry about them any more than you worry about who will get the cars or the furniture. But then, there on the last page of book one you finally see Nicole breaking, you finally see the Nicole Dick tries to hide from the world (for her benefit more than his I suspect) and you realize.... Well I don't know what YOU realize. But I was sunk. But at the same time I started to love the story. I saw the complexities of Dick's position, which is silly because even without mental illness complexities were there. I wanted Rosemary gone. I wanted Nicole happy. I wanted Dick to take a second look and to get back to the path he was on before Rosemary entered their lives. And yet, I worry that none of the three will ever be happy while Nicole slips further and further away. My heart aches for them.