Tender Is the Night

Tender Is the Night, semiautobiographical novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1934. It is the story of a psychiatrist who marries one of his patients; as she slowly recovers, she exhausts his vitality until he is, in Fitzgerald’s words, un homme épuisé (“a used-up man”).

At first a charming success, Dick Diver disintegrates into drunkenness, failure, and anonymity as his wife Nicole recovers her strength and independence. Fitzgerald’s portrayal of the Divers’ life of lassitude was a reflection of his years spent among the American expatriate community in France; his insight into Nicole’s madness came from his observations of his wife Zelda’s mental breakdowns. Diver is said to be based on the author’s friend Gerald Murphy, but the character reflects much of Fitzgerald as well.

Set in the south of France in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic tale of a young actress, Rosemary Hoyt, and her complicated relationship with the alluring American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth pushed him into a glamorous lifestyle, and whose growing strength highlights Dick’s decline.

Lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative, Tender Is the Night was one of the most talked-about books of the year when it was originally published in 1934, and is even more beloved by readers today.