Book Reviews

F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters

F. Scott Fitzgerald:  A Life in Letters is a portal to 1917 to 1940, a magical mailbox where you can receive letters from F. Scott Fitzgerald.

On December 21, 1940, F Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack, and, as the letters approached that date, I had to choke back tears—I wasn’t ready to let go of this broken man with tremendous dreams, a struggling artist, a committed father and husband, waging battle on too many fronts.

A Life in Letters is highly addictive; while I was reading this, I would share glimpses of letters with friends, and they would inevitably return, clamoring for more.

Struggling Artist

A Life in Letters paints a portrait of a struggling artist—despite Fitzgerald’s commitment to quality, he never attained boundless riches and glory in his lifetime.

And the life of an artist can be depressing.  For example, Vincent Van Gogh died a relatively unknown; he only attained fame posthumously as a result of his brother’s wife tirelessly promoting his work.

One of the funniest books that I have ever read is A Confederacy of Dunces, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1984.  However, the author, John Kennedy Toole died in 1969, heartbroken due to the countless rejection of his book.  His mother, Thelma, found his book, read it, and discovered that it was legitimately excellent.  She spent years finding someone to give it a chance.  According to Wikipedia, over five years, she sent the book to seven publishers, and all rejected it.  Finally, she cornered a college professor who agreed to read it to get her off his back.  He intended to only read one page, but the book was so enchanting that he couldn’t put it down, and the rest is history.

The point is that the life of a true artist is rarely easy, and Fitzgerald was no exception.  Let’s look at some of his quotes:

“I want to be extravagantly admired again.”

“Who in hell ever respected Shelley, Whitman, Poe, O. Henry, Verlaine, Swinburne, Villon, Shakespeare ect when they were alive.  Shelley + Swinburne were fired from college; Verlaine + O Henry were in jail.  The rest were drunkards or wasters and told generally by merchants and petty politicians and jitney messiahs of their day that real people wouldn’t stand it And the merchants and messiahs, the shrewd + the dull, are dust—and the others live on.”

“The book comes out today [The Great Gatsby] and I am overcome with fears and forebodings.  […] In fact all my confidence is gone. […] I’m sick of the book myself—I wrote it over at least five times.”

“Everything that I have ever attained has been through long and persistent struggle.”

“When I was your age I lived with a great dream.  The dream grew and I learned how to speak of it and make people listen.”

“In a small way I was an original.”

“You don’t realize that what I am doing here is the last tired effort of a man who once did something finer and better.”

“What little I’ve accomplished has been by the most laborious and uphill work, and I wish now I’d never relaxed or looked back—but said at the end of The Great Gatsby: ‘I’ve found my line—from now on this comes first.  This is my immediate duty—without this I am nothing.’”

Secret Insights

A Life in Letters doesn’t disappoint if you want to know the secrets behind Fitzgerald’s works.

Did you know that Fitzgerald considered many different titles for The Great Gatsby?  Below were some possibilities:

Under the Red, White, and Blue
Among the Ash-Heaps and Millionaires
Gold-Hatted Gatsby
Trimalchio in West Egg
The High-Bouncing Lover
On the Road to West Egg

Literary Critic

A Life in Letters is also a literary guide.  Fitzgerald gives his colorful yet eloquent opinion on many works of literature from Charles Dickens to Gertrude Stein to William Blake to John Keats to Edith Wharton to Sinclair Lewis to Henry David Thoreau.  Toward the end of his life, Fitzgerald worked very briefly on the script for Gone With The Wind.

While living in Paris, Fitzgerald met Ernest Hemingway.  For A Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, Fitzgerald gives Hemingway detailed review notes, reprinted in A Life in Letters.  If one were so inclined, a reader can discover if Hemingway accepted Fitzgerald’s “suggestions.”

One of my favorite authors is John Steinbeck, and Fitzgerald had strong opinions about him.  He accused Steinbeck of stealing a scene from McTeague, a book by Frank Norris, and using it in Of Mice and Men.

Fitzgerald also had a front row seat to the clash between his editor, Maxwell Perkins, and writer Thomas Wolfe.  This is covered in the brilliant 2016 film, Genius.  Of course, now I have to read Look Homeward Angel.

If you have a strong literary curiosity, who better than Fitzgerald to give his honest opinion?

A Reminder to Be Kind to Each Other

In 1936, Fitzgerald broke his shoulder in a diving accident, making writing impossible.  On September 25, 1936, The New York Post published a particularly troubling article, resulting in Fitzgerald attempting to take his own life.  By 1939, Fitzgerald writes of spending months in bed with ill health, high temperatures, and a lung cavity.

In parting, keep in mind Fitzgerald’s advice to his daughter, Scottie:

But it is a different story that you have spent two years doing no useful work at all, improving neither your body nor your mind, but only writing reams and reams of dreary letters to dreary people, with no possible object except obtaining invitations which you could not accept. […]

On the other hand, when occasionally I see signs of life and intention in you, there is no company in the world I prefer.  For there is no doubt that you have something in your belly, some real gusto for life—a real dream of your own—and my idea was to wed it to something solid before it was too late.

The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $31.80 from eBay

★★★★★