Paul Theroux:

One morning in Westport, Conn., in the summer of 1920, about three months after her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald became slightly cranky over breakfast. She said that she hated Yankee bacon and eggs. Alabama-born and -raised, she craved Southern biscuits, “and I wish I could have some peaches anyhow.”

This made Scott smile. Jumpy, not to say reckless and self-destructive, he shared with Zelda that most familiar of…