The Great Gatsby and the New Canaan Library Luncheon

This Thursday, September 19, the New Canaan Library is hosting its annual fundraising Literary Luncheon event with featured guest speaker Therese Anne Fowler. 

Fowler is the author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, and looks at the life of Zelda, and her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald, who were a "charismatic, brilliant and mercurial," couple, according to the New Canaan Library. The event is the 6th annual installment of the annual fundraiser and is one of the library's biggest money-raising efforts.

"It's really important fundraiser for us and it's a really fun luncheon and fundraiser," said Library Director of Development and Programs Susan LaPerla. "The luncheon contributes significantly to [our annual fundraising] goals and it's a nice tradition"

The library needs to raise more than $400,000 a year in donations to supplement their yearly budget, LaPerla said. She anticipates the luncheon this year will be particularly interesting, focusing on Fitzgerald near the height of interest in the name with the recent theatric release of The Great Gatsby.

"Though [Zelda and F. Scott] were both possessed their own specific demons, Zelda in particular has been portrayed in many different and often unflattering, ways," said LaPerla. "What emerges in Ms. Fowler’s book is a complex, three-dimensional and very human Zelda Fitzgerald, who was a talented writer and artist in her own right, overshadowed and derailed by her husband. Therese Anne Fowler tells the story of Zelda with brilliant insight and imagination, bringing us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it."

The luncheon, themed around the Great Gatsby era, is offering tickets starting at $100 and tables of 10 available for purchase. It will be held Thursday, September 19, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Woodway Country Club at 540 Hoyt Street in Darien. For additional information on the event, or to purchase tickets please visit newcanaanlibrary.org, or call 203-594-5025.