Beacon of Female Revenge

Emmanuel van Stein

11.21.2025

F. Scott Fitzgerald was considered one of the most successful American writers of the 1920s. Sash Bischoff wrote award-winning plays, worked as an actress, and directed on Broadway. Her novel, “Lertuch su die Rache nennt sie , ein Gegespräch” (Lertuch calls revenge, a conversation) with Fitzgerald’s work, is full of twists and turns. Her thriller about a manipulative love triangle is a counterpoint to the sexism in Fitzgerald’s novels and a beacon of female revenge: The popular actress Lila wants to realize an ambitious film project with her partner Kurt, a disillusioned director: a contemporary version of Fitzgerald’s 1954 novel, “Tender Is the Night,” from a female perspective. To prepare for her role, Lila goes into therapy—also to work through her own traumas. Both Lila and her therapist Jonah pursue their own goals. Jonah knows Lila from the past. What secret connects them, how the relationship between Lila, Kurt, and Jonah escalates, and how another new, devastating name is revealed, Bischoff depicts in a double-edged, brutally ending plot that also offers a critical look behind the scenes of filmmaking.