Summary
Set during the dazzling excess of the Jazz Age, The Beautiful and Damned chronicles the lives of Anthony Patch, a privileged young man and presumptive heir to his grandfather's fortune, and his glamorous but self-indulgent wife, Gloria Gilbert.
As they chase pleasure, wealth, and status in 1920s New York, the couple’s lavish lifestyle begins to unravel under the weight of their vanity, idleness, and alcoholism.
Through Anthony’s slow disintegration — moral, emotional, and financial — Fitzgerald paints a portrait of a generation adrift in post-war disillusionment. What begins as a dreamy life of wealth and beauty becomes a descent into ruin and bitterness.
A cautionary tale of the American elite, The Beautiful and Damned explores the emptiness of privilege, the fragility of love, and the costs of living for appearances in a world obsessed with success and spectacle.