This Side of Paradise – F. Scott Fitzgerald

"It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being."

Amory Blaine, a handsome and privileged young man from the Midwest, attends Princeton and navigates the social scene of the Jazz Age. He experiences literary awakening, romantic heartbreak, and the disillusionment of post-war life. The novel traces his journey from egoism to a cynical self-knowledge.

Fitzgerald's debut novel made him an overnight celebrity. It captured the mood of a generation that had "grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken."