I'd Die for You and Other Lost Stories
At a Glance
Section titled âAt a Glanceâ| Metadata | Details |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 2017-12-01 |
| Journal | The F Scott Fitzgerald Review |
| Authors | Kirk Curnutt |
| Citations | 2 |
Abstract
Section titled âAbstractâFans, regardless of their heroâs field of endeavor, both love and loathe âthe vault,â that magical repository of discards and ephemera where, if one delves deep enough into the detritus, a long-buried gem might be recovered. The particular item may be a misplaced painting, an unreleased song, or, for lovers of literature, a misfiled manuscript; but the mixture of excitement and trepidation that accompanies the search is largely the same. On the positive side, the quest promises the possibility of uncovering a work that is not simply previously unknown but one that will completely reframe perceptions of the artistâa revelation, in other words. Dampening the thrill of this pursuit, though, is the anxiety that comes from wondering whether the work has sunk to Mariana Trench depths for a reason. Maybe it does not deserve to see the light of day.As in life, the disappointments in art tend to outnumber the revelations. For every graduate student who unearths a never-before-read Claude McKay novel in the papers of a notorious New York City âsmuthoundâ (Nathans-Kelly), there is the literary estate that, like Jack Kerouacâs, will release a piece of âunfinished juveniliaâ such as The Sea is My Brother (2012) that even completists regard as peripheral (Churchwell).1 In other cases, one wonders exactly what demand prompted the exhumation: so few readers know Pearl S. Buck these days that when The Eternal Wonder (2013) was discovered in a storage closet and published for the first time forty years after her death newspaper accounts had to educate general audiences on who she was and why they should care. (Hint: âthe first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literatureâ [Bosman].) Then there is the unsettling case of Harper Leeâs Go Set a Watchman. Appearing in July 2015 amid serious questions about the management of the incapacitated Leeâs affairsâthe author died the following winterâthis embryonic attempt at the narrative that grew into To Kill a Mockingbird (1961) was a triumph in hype but little else. The book may have sold 1.6 million copies, but Leeâs less-than-heroic presentation of her earliest iteration of Atticus Finch, before she reinvented him as an icon of paternal nobility, confused readers and left many feeling betrayed. Watchman certainly has scholarly value, but selling it as an autonomous novel without even an editorial apparatus to clarify its germinal relationship to its predecessor was an insult to author and audience alike. Nearly three years later, the book stands as an unfortunate coda to a much-beloved classic, one whose handling is spoken about with either a grimace or an eye-roll (Giraldi).F. Scott Fitzgerald fans have been spared this sort of barrel scraping. Edmund Wilsonâs edition of The Last Tycoon (1941) raised some questions about the propriety of publishing an âunfinishedâ work, but the qualms died rapidly as the Fitzgerald revival of the 1940s took off. Today, Fitzgerald studies are unimaginable without Monroe Stahr as the capstone to his creatorâs fascination with personality and success, while the novel itself has become key to appreciating the writerâs simultaneous attraction to/repulsion with Hollywood and the movies. The collections that scholars such as Matthew J. Bruccoli, John Kuehl, and Jackson R. Bryer edited in the 1970sâThe Basil and Josephine Stories (1973), Bits of Paradise (1974), and The Price Was High (1979)âmade available stories that had disappeared decades earlier in the fleeting periodical pages of Fitzgeraldâs short-fiction career. Occasional unpublished efforts like âOn Your Ownâ (Price 323-38) or âA Full Lifeâ found their way into a variety of academic journals and mass-market magazines; yet even when featured in Esquire instead of the Princeton University Library Chronicle their appearance was not promoted as an âeventâ manufactured out of proportion to their literary value, and they did not raise the defenses of reviewers.Then came August 6, 2012âadmittedly late in the day. More than seventy years after Fitzgeraldâs death, the New Yorker debuted a story it had rejected in 1936 called âThank You for the Light.â Unless one had lately perused the musty pages of the old Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual for Jennifer McCabe Atkinsonâs âThe Lost and Unpublished Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgeraldâ (1971), the title probably did not ring a bell. One might have been forgiven for confusing it with âYour Way and Mineâ (1927; ASYM 312-32) or âAt Your Ageâ (1929; TAR 207-22), two other stories with you/your in their titles already in print but rarely discussed. After all, with some 165 stories to Fitzgeraldâs credit, even devoted fans have difficulties keeping titles straight; the number of people who can distinguish âFamily in the Windâ (1932; TAR 87-106) from âThe Family Busâ (1933; Price 488-511) or âTwo Wrongsâ (1930; TAR 24-44) from âSix of Oneââ (1932; Price 369-81) without peeking at Mary Jo Tateâs F. Scott Fitzgerald A to Z (1998) can probably be counted on two hands (I am not among them).Once one realized âThank You for the Lightâ was indeed a ânewâ Fitzgerald story, the jolt it delivered sharpened and intensified. Although not a great story as âBabylon Revisitedâ (1931; TAR 157-77) or even the underrated âOne Trip Abroadâ (1930; TAR 263-84) are, it was nevertheless a reminder of how much remains to be said about the trajectory of Fitzgeraldâs short-fiction career in the changing literary marketplace of the 1930s. A brief, satirical sketch about corset-and-girdle saleswoman blessed with the answered prayer of a lighted cigarette in a cathedral, âThank Youâ is structurally little more than an opportunity to deliver the title pun as a punchline to a joke. Yet in poking compact fun at religious devotion, the story serves as a counterpoint to youthful efforts such as âBenedictionâ (1920; F&P 134-50), offering a wizened if not ironic 1930s response to the romantic faith in emotional rhapsody and epiphany so central to the early 1920s fiction that made him famous. As such, the story demonstrated Fitzgeraldâs challenge as he lost his aptitude for Saturday Evening Post stories of winsome love to find a more austere, Depression-appropriate voice.At the same time, he also needed sympathetic, reliable venues for this tauter, drier short fiction. Arnold Gingrich of Esquire threw him a lifeline as he experimented with the style, leading to two important late-career works, âFinancing Finneganâ (1938; LD 50-58) and âThe Lost Decadeâ (1939; LD 65-69). Yet Esquire alone could not support Fitzgerald, not at only $200 per story (one-twentieth of his peak Post price). Agent Harold Ober tried to find a home for âThank Youâ at several other periodicals, but Vogue, College Humor, Harperâs Bazaar, and Vanity Fair all summarily rejected it as well (Atkinson 53). Why Ober did not try Harperâs or The American Mercury, two venues that paid William Faulkner $400 for stories too dark for the Post, remains something of a mystery (Faulkner, Selected Letters 88, 90-91). Doing so probably seemed pointless.Among literary outlets of the 1930s, one might have expected the urbane, cosmopolitan New Yorker to have appreciated Fitzgeraldâs new vein. Yet in reality, the magazineâs humor at the time was broader and far less arch than the cynicism that radiates from âThank You for the Light.â (As proof, one need only read E. B. Whiteâs contemporaneous Hemingway parody, âThe Law of the Jungleâ (1934), whose spry use of doggerel is witty but far lighter in tone than the dour, downtrodden atmosphere of Fitzgeraldâs submission [31].) The author also faced the formidable challenge of literary stereotyping. Like many readers who cut their literary teeth on Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age, Harold Rossâs editors could not quite wrap their heads around the concept of sardonic or hardboiled F. Scott Fitzgerald stories. Rejecting âThank You for the Lightâ as âall together out of the question,â the New Yorker was right when it said the story âseems ⊠so curious and so unlike the kind of thing we associate with him.â The magazine erred in calling it âreally too fantastic,â however (qtd. in Atkinson 53). Despite the storyâs subtly satirical take on miracles, we can see it as part of a continuum from âThe Cut-Glass Bowlâ (1920; F&P 87-107) through âThe Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonâ (1922; TJA 169-95) and on to âA Short Trip Homeâ (1927; TAR 107-28) that reveals his interest in fantasy and the supernatural (Buell 23-38).For all of these reasons then, the appearance of âThank You for the Lightâ nearly eighty years after its composition was both poignant and exciting. Like James Marshall discovering gold at Sutterâs Mill in California in 1848, the Fitzgerald estateâs willingness to make it available set off a veritable rush for buried treasure. Scholars bored deep into the archives at Princeton, the University of South Carolina, and other sites. In 2015, The Strand Magazine made a news splash publishing a piece called âTemperatureâ from 1939. Although Ober pointedly told Fitzgerald âI do not believe you think that it is anywhere one of your best storiesâ (qtd. in Atkinson 60), the reception was almost as positive as it was wide. âTemperatureâ even prompted Laura Miller in Slate to call for a reevaluation of Fitzgeraldâs stories as well as the art of the commercial short fiction before television replaced it as a mass entertainment: But what most strikes me about âTemperatureâ is the soundness of its construction. Any bit of business that figures late in the plot (the shoddiness of the bungalowâs bannisters; Emmetâs low tolerance for alcohol) is deftly established early on. The narrative is a little clockwork wonder that goes despite its creatorâs evident indifference to it, like the abandoned robot in [the 2008 animated childrenâs movie] Wall-E. Countless modern-day Hollywood movies, productions tweaked and tinkered with by dozens of handsomely paid individuals, cannot hope to rival âTemperatureâ in coherence and simple competence. Fitzgerald was such a pro. If only heâd found it easier to appreciate that for the compliment it is. Nor was the post-âThank Youâ interest in new material restricted to Fitzgerald himself. Shortly before the 2013 Fitzgerald Society Conference in Montgomery, a local bookseller, Thomas Upchurch, showed Sara Kosiba and me a ninety-five-year-old literary annual from Sidney Lanier High School passed down from his grandfather. Included in the publication was a story by seventeen-year-old Zelda Fitzgerald called âThe Iceberg,â written several months before she met her future husband. We printed the tale as the end pages of the conference program, and thanks to Eleanor Lanahan and James L. W. West III, the New Yorker soon published it as well (albeit only on its website, not in the print edition).The major payoff to this scramble for undiscovered Fitzgerald has now, finally and conclusively, arrived in the form of Anne Margaret Danielâs collection Iâd Die for You and Other Lost Stories. Authorized by the Fitzgerald estate and published by Scribnerâs, it is first and foremost a handsomely produced volume. Illustrating the pages are several rare photographs, including one of Danielâs subject mugging in a photo booth that reminds us the man was not all melancholy and moonlight (57). Another, more serious portrait finds him glaring into the camera with such charismatic intensity he could be posing for an advertisement for the manufacturer of the leather gloves he wears (229). Danielâs introduction and explanatory notes are also excellentâneither too intrusive nor too scholarly, with just the right amount of biography and critical analysis to set a context for understanding the various points Fitzgerald was at in his career when he wrote the eighteen different titles included. Daniel has obviously learned a thing or two from West, perhaps from his 2000 American Scholar essay âAnnotating Mr. Fitzgerald,â about the art of informative and entertaining note writing (83-91). Readers who have never heard of âDundreary whiskersâ (327) or Karl Vollmöllerâs 1911 play Das Mirakel (The Miracle), which âThank You for the Lightâ lightly satirizes (356), prepare to be enlightenedâand to smile while doing so.As for the stories themselvesâwhere to begin? Readers will not be surprised to discover that fully three quarters of the material dates from that painful 1934-37 period bordered by the disappointing reception of Tender Is the Night on one end and Fitzgeraldâs final departure for Hollywood on the other. Accordingly, the themes channel Fitzgeraldâs awareness that the days when he could crank out even a tepid story such as âIndecisionâ (1931; TAR 310-27) and sell it quickly to the Post were at an end. No longer are the stories simply about loss. Instead, they reflect a sense of resignation and defeat, tinged with a contempt for the romantic situations on which the author could once almost effortlessly spin variations. The titles alone express this downbeat attitude: âWhat to Do About Itâ (39-56), âDay Off from Loveâ (113-18), and âLove is a Painâ (277-90) are just three examples. The style likewise feels enervated, as if the mere act of putting pen to paper anymore exhausted Fitzgerald. The settings, too, bespeak the failing health and rootlessness of these years: we are inside hospitals, in the mountains of North Carolina, in automobiles or on trains, passing through empty tourist towns or, as in âThank You for the Light,â stuck on a sales route in Kansas City. Drugs are present, lives end in suicidal leaps from mountains, and human interactions have coarsened: whereas Fitzgerald once sidestepped crass or vulgar language with polite euphemisms like âobstetrical conversationâ (GG 42), we now hear the pushy type of undergraduate boys who crashed Gatsbyâs parties or who drew the curtains of Rosemary Hoytâs train compartment (TITN 102, 103) spew locker-room talk: âDid you G. the L. or is she still pulling that one about being a Catholic and doesnât believe in Birth Control[?]â reads a letter one Yale roommate writes another (270).According to Daniel, this line was âhotâ enough to keep Esquire from buying âSalute to Lucy and Elsieâ (267-68). One presumes readers back then did not need an editorial note (as I did) explaining that âG. the L.â (270) means âGet the Layâ (353). Such expressions are a long way even from the vicious formality of âI never did go in for making love to dry loinsâ (TITN 346). Still, this is F. Scott Fitzgerald: it bears keeping in mind that as jarring as âif it hadnât been me it would have been someone elseâ (270) is from a writer known for ladders of starlight leading to secret places above the trees (GG 86), the late 1930s was the period when Ernest Hemingway slipped his first unexpurgated F-word into To Have and Have Not (1937) (225), and William Faulkner snuck a C-bomb past Random House editors in The Wild Palms (1939) (52). That said, those books were novels, not stories written for magazines delivered by a postal system that was still heavily monitored for obscenities. Interestingly, Daniel implies that Fitzgerald was resistant to toning down âhotâ moments in his 1930s stories, noting he âchanged nothingâ when Gingrich asked for alterations (268). Yet his uncharacteristic refusal to edit to seal a deal with an editor when he badly needed money occurs only five years after Fitzgerald blue-penciled profanity in private correspondence with John OâHara, one of the more famous examples of his fastidiousness (Bruccoli 101). The somewhat sudden willingness to speak frankly in âSalute to Lucy and Elsieâ raises questions about what exactly changed for him between 1934 and 1939. It is tempting to see in his use of the impolite âG. the L.â and the still-taboo words âbirth controlâ a hostility toward the short story itself, as if, having learned the hard way his old manner was passĂ©, he would force the marketplace to take him or leave him on his own terms. As we know, the market mostly chose to leave him.Inevitably, reading the stories encourages connections to long-adored favorites. The title storyâone of the bestâopens with a description of setting that seems like a more somber, toned-down uncle to the beginning of âThe Ice Palaceâ (1920; F&P 36-60). If that story kicked off with a of and atmosphere the like an art and the and there only the of the of Die for Youâ a more that seems to the possibility of that a of the mountains the a of on its In the was a and on this an of to many with the of the whereas the âThe (1920; F&P with a at the of its romantic story on a that was a as as and a as as the of childrenâs another of the âThe in the off with a that its will to many is one of those stories that to by calling the or there were so many people into it that at one of will read it and to have been a leading other cases, the stories are to and are early of the story published as âThe of (1939; Price one of the The Fitzgerald before editor the piece are in essay and A of of published in which the one of Fitzgeraldâs in a story that will readers back to âThe Bowlâ ASYM that story finds to play through as a to his work this G. a of for he may not through simple two of the stories are of interest only as at written for the and and written for never off the as stories. written as a plot the style of by of its an tale that with As Daniel âLove is a Painâ (277-90) bears to Ernest play The (1937) and of as or South of the might have one story the Fitzgerald of his it is the âThe in amid the of of Paradise and only after his to Zelda this of a not has all the and of âA as as the (1922; TJA or even TJA For years I the title of this story from Atkinsonâs and was by the Ober showed for it in his notes by written the to its Yet Atkinsonâs seemed to of was not one of his seems to have read more and into the story than it could be a story, and perhaps one into a story, is one of Fitzgeraldâs years later, the New Yorker and with Ober by publishing the piece in as a for Danielâs collection One literary even called the story for atmosphere of the line between and fiction is by and need not for to news to âThe most is and (1920; F&P and career as the author of In this the is a who to his his The of the is fiction. The story of a supernatural with a in the this into the out to be when said after a long from The to his by the only to be as a âThe was written at the of Harperâs editor who five years would his by The sales when published her novel the same that The only a raises an what if Fitzgerald had set his of the novel as and his to âThe into a of it have him a of he have the through several a broader plot have the story from to a like one way or another is but that the humor of âThe at the Jazz toward hype and the attempt would have been a few other stories deserve in dates to the months in when Zelda Fitzgerald was in Set in a its of is far more than in Tender Is the Night and raises questions about the between mere and and tone also perhaps more than of these 1930s stories, how the Fitzgerald did indeed work the for there is the Post or should have rejected this in and published three of the the the of in Fitzgeraldâs may to into what would become with its and its plot about a the for as Atkinson In a the story finds Fitzgerald that even in the audiences some type of too, is every bit as as the commercial fiction sold in this its editors were is Iâd Die for You and Other Lost Stories an challenge for Fitzgerald they do not or or the most in the challenge us to set those and most with the writer to about the of plot the of to and Readers will about what and which or which are on a story Daniel if only to us of the need to about the and of his of his short fiction in We have still to read Fitzgerald in the context of the magazine market of the 1920s and 1930s, instead the story writer who can in Hemingway and Faulkner instead of an or Pearl S. Yet Iâd Die for You and Other Lost Stories reminds first and that Fitzgeraldâs stories were commercial that the and of the we need a sense of what exactly those themes and the years of the when did hardboiled and the book is