Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work—the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside—the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once.Thus begins F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1936 essay "The Crack-Up," a self-examination of the author's encounter with regret, ambition, fame, failure, retreat, collapse, resignation, and recovery, which appeared as a three-part series in Esquire ("Part 1: The Crack-Up" in February, "Part 2: Pasting It Together" in March, and "Part 3: Handle with Care" in April).
The opening hooks readers because of its surprisingly self-pitying vantage point: the outside blows destroy one's inside, and do so dramatically. The story shifts abruptly from location to confrontation to observation to reservation to hesitation to determination, but it does so with an elegance of expression that established Fitzgerald's literary reputation. If these are the meanderings of a man dealing with a crack-up, he renders them with a flair that few of his contemporaries shared. "The Crack-Up" is worth a read for anyone looking for ideas on how to write an autobiography.
