Reception room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City, ca. Photo: Museum of the City of New York/Bridgeman ImagesIn one of his epigraphs to this compact book on F. Scott Fitzgerald, Arthur Krystal invokes Lytton Strachey’s advice to the successful biographer: Instead of the “direct method of a scrupulous narration,” the biographer must “attack his subject in unexpected places; he will fall upon the flank or the rear; he will shoot a sudden, revealing searchlight into obscure recesses, hitherto undivined.” The evocation of Strachey in connection with Fitzgerald is surprising since they seem an unlikely pair, but Mr. Krystal quotes him in order to distinguish “Some Unfinished Chaos: The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald” from the always-growing list of Fitzgerald biographies that began in 1951, with Arthur Mizener’s “The Far Side of Paradise.” In choosing the plural “Lives,” Mr. Krystal wants to open up his subject to multiple interpretations rather than opting for the “direct method” of settling on the singular explanatory one. His other epigraph is from Fitzgerald himself: “There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He’s too many people if he’s any good.”

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Persons: Scott Fitzgerald, Arthur Krystal, Lytton, Strachey, Fitzgerald, Krystal, Scott Fitzgerald ”, Arthur Mizener’s “, ” Mr, couldn’t, ” Organizations: Ritz, Carlton Locations: New York City, City of New York