DEEP SOUTH THE WRITE WAY

Take a literature-themed road trip in the wake of Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Harper Lee to uncover the rich stories, enduring issues and irrepressible spirit of the southern states

- Jacqui Agate

'The sunlight dripped over the house like golden paint over an art jar.' F Scott Fitzgerald wrote these honeyed words in 1920- they open The Ice Palace, a tale of a restless Southern belle who strikes north with her new love. As I drove the curved path to the Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, I thought of these words as I rounded the bend. Evening light had coloured everything in pastels. The cedar-shingled house, where F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald lived for a stint in the early 1930s, was washed with peach sunshine. Out front, a tree stood slick with wisteria and the road glowed amber.

This former residence, now a museum, has two suites that have been available to rent on Airbnb since 2018. It was my home for a few days and the first stop on a literature-themed road trip through the Deep South. My journey would take me from Alabama's capital city to the belly of New Orleans, on the tail of writers such as William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. But my first rendezvous was with the Fitzgeralds.

Francis Scott (known as Scott) and Zelda are held up as the perfect Jazz Age couple. Their stories - the most famous of which is Scott's The Great Gatsby - glamourise champagne-drenched nights in New York City and sun-baked days on France's Côte d'Azur. And in many ways, the Fitzgeralds' real life was as glittering as those of their protagonists. He had met 18-year-old Zelda Sayre, the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court Justice, at the Montgomery Country Club. What followed was a whirlwind romance that saw the pair whisk across the world, from Alabama to New York, Paris to Rome.

"Zelda loved her hometown of Montgomery," Máire Martello, guide and board member at the Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum, told me. "But ultimately she wanted to see the world. Scott could offer her that."