Its poor reception led to his own breakdown, recorded in his essays collected by Edmund Wilson in The Crack-Up (1945).
Fitzgerald recovered sufficiently to become a screenwriter in Hollywood in 1937, an experience that inspired his final and most mature novel, The Last Tycoon (1941). Although it remained unfinished at his death in Hollywood on December 21, 1940, the book's brilliance prompted critics to re-evaluate Fitzgerald's talent and eventually to recognize him as one of the finest American writers of the 20th century.