Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender Is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on F. Scott Fitzgerald's life and work. In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story: the confessions of a famous, slightly doomed glamour girl of the affluent 1920s, which captures the spirit of an era.

Zelda Fitzgerald was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1900. She became a 'roarer' of the pre-1920s and met F.Scott Fitzgerald at one of the many social dances she attended. They married in 1920 and began a decade of riotous living in France and America. Zelda wrote magazine articles and short stories, and at twenty-seven became obsessed with a career as a dancer. The couple became increasingly eccentric and erratic; Scott became an alcoholic and Zelda developed schizophrenia. In 1932 Zelda became seriously ill and wrote Save me the Waltz in six weeks to the envy of her husband who had been writing Tender is the Night for more than five years. Zelda died in a hospital fire in 1947.