Trivia:
Which author was humble enough to admit "What happened to me was dumb luck. I'm not the new Hemingway."
Webmaster: Susan Vicarisi
A Matter of Mystery
The trouble all began on a summer evening in July of 1918 when twenty-one year old Scott Fitzgerald met eighteen-year-old Zelda Sayre, that captivating, southern belle tomboy who was already sneaking a smoke, a drink of corn liquor, and necking: Zelda, who had been voted the "prettiest and most attractive" girl in the Montgomery, Alabama, high school graduating class.
Or, to be more exact-as Fitzgerald was-the trouble began when he "fell in love on the seventh" of September, as he noted in his journal, and concluded that to win the hand of this "whirlwind" he had to draw on his "ace in the hole" and complete the novel he had been spinning in his head.
To be even more precise about it, the trouble really started when his sophomoric scheme worked: when his novel was accepted for publication and was an instant hit.
Before he took leave of his senses and dreamed up this plan to win Zelda, Scott Fitzgerald had been working for ninety dollars a month with the Street Railway Advertising company, "writing the slogans that while away the weary hours in rural trolley cars," finding in this humdrum world that "all the confidence I had garnered at Princeton and in a haughty career as the army's worst aide-de-camp melted gradually away." With a sense that time was running out, he quit his advertising job, left New York City and "crept home" to St. Paul, Minnesota, announcing to his family that he was going to write a novel. "Through two hot months I wrote and revised and compiled and boiled down." It seemed never once to have crossed Fitzgerald's mind that his book, like almost all first novels, was destined to oblivion. "This is a definite attempt at a big novel and I really believe I have hit it," Fitzgerald wrote on July 26, 1919, to Max Perkins, a young editor at Scribner's, the publishing house Fitzgerald hoped would accept his manuscript. "Now what I want to ask you is this-if I send you the book by August 20th and you decide you could risk its publication (I am blatantly confident that you will) would it be brought out in October, say, or just what would decide its date of publication?" The novel was mailed off to New York City at the end of the summer, and Fitzgerald, "an empty bucket, so mentally blunted with the summer's writing," had taken a job repairing car roofs at the Northern Pacific shops.
Suddenly, on September 15, 1919, the postman rang. A special delivery letter. And there he goes! Look! There goes Scott, now F. Scott Fitzgerald, running "along the streets, stopping automobiles to tell friends and acquaintances about it - my novel, This Side of Paradise, was accepted for publication."
Fitzgerald was pretty oblivious to the nature of the miracle that had just befallen him, pressing Perkins to get the book out at once. Zelda was almost trapped in his net. The day he received word of his book's acceptance by Scribner's, he dashed off a note to Perkins: "Would it be utterly impossible for you to publish the book Xmas--or, say, by February? I have so many things dependent on its success--including of course a girl--not that I expect it to make me a fortune but it will have a psychological effect on me and all my surroundings and besides open up new fields. I'm in that stage where every month counts frantically and seems a cudgel in a fight for happiness against time." But even Perkins's hat full of miracles was limited, and he patiently explained why the book could not appear until, would you believe it, March. Fitzgerald understood. "I feel I've certainly been lucky to find a publisher who seems so generally interested in his authors. Lord knows this literary game has been discouraging enough at times." My, my, at twenty-two. Wait a few years Scott; you ain't seen nothing yet!...
Preface
Chapter One..........A Matter of Mystery............................3
Chapter Two..........Winning the Genetic Sweepstakes....17
ChapterThree.........Sing, O Muse.......................................29
Chapter Four..........The Writing Life................................39
Chapter Five...........Your Stupid Book Stinks..................49
Chapter Six..............We're All Connected........................65
Chapter Seven..........Barbarians Through the Gates.......79
Chapter Eight...........Judging a Book by its Cover..........89
Chapter Nine............De Gustibus......................................103
Chapter Ten.............Non Est Disputandum.......................111
Chapter Eleven........Make a Joyful Noise.......................119
Chapter Twelve......Making the List.................................133
Chapter Thirteen.....A Boy Has to Peddle His Book.....145
Chapter Fourteen....With a Little Bit of Luck..............155
Chapter Fifteen........Hats Off to Jackie!......................165
Chapter Sixteen.......Apply It to the Problem...............179
Chapter Notes......................................................................201
Bibliography.........................................................................219
Index.....................................................................................227