Set in the South of France in the decade after World War I, „Tender Is the Night" is the story of a brilliant and magnetic psychiatrist named Dick Diver who marries one of his patients, a wealthy schizophrenic, Nicole Warren; as she slowly recovers, she exhausts his vitality until he is, in Fitzgerald's words, un homme épuisé („a used-up man"). The novel explores how love can be won, lost, and perverted by the myriad forces that shape our lives, including money, illness, and politics.