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Volume 24 | April 2016

Volume 24 2015 - 2016

The F. Scott Fitzgerald

Society Newsletter

Table of Contents Dublin and Waterford: The 13th International Fitzgerald Society Conference by Dustin Anderson ...... 1 Rockville, MD: The Fitzgerald Literary Festival, 2014-2015 by Jackson R. Bryer...... 6 Fitzgerald’s Roots in by Anton McCabe...... 8 Fitzgerald in Morningside Heights by Bret Maney...... 12 One big Fitzgerald family: attendees gather along the Christ Church wall in Dublin Gatsby in Australia by Peter Llewellyn...... 16 Cuireann Éire Fáilte Roimh Fitzgerald Bhaile: Ireland Welcomes Fitzgerald Home at the 13th International News and Notes Fitzgerald Society Conference, July 2015 by Peter L. Hays...... 17 he cities of Dublin and Waterford, Ireland welcomed the 13th Dublin and International F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Conference, Gaelicly Waterford Photos...... 22 Tyours, Scott Fitzgerald, which took place the week of July 4-10, 2015. Fitzgerald’s connection to Ireland, much like Raymond Chandler’s, is a natural and deep one. Fitzgerald is, of course, from Irish-American lineage (what he tells O’Hara in a letter is “half black Irish,” although his Fitzgeralds hail from near in Ulster), but his connections to Irish expatriates, like James Joyce, and a kind of intangibly nostalgic vanished Irish culture offer a diverse and rich bond to Ireland itself.

We were incredibly pleased to see participants from across the globe— coming in from Georgia to Japan—to make this a truly international experience. The conference was lucky enough to receive proposals on virtually all aspects of Fitzgerald’s life and work that focus on the Irish influences on or aspects of his writing and career. Our herculean program directors, Professors William Blazek and Philip McGowan, did an amazing job of bringing together topics that created dynamic and engaging sessions. Those wide-ranging topics focused on the named Irish elements or characters from stories like “Benediction,” “Head and Shoulders,” “The Jelly Bean,” “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” “,” “In the Darkest Hour,” “,” “Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar,” “Jacob’s

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Ladder,” “,” and “What a Handsome Pair.” Other presentations ranged from examinations of the Irish and Irish-American tropes in both his short fiction and his novels to Fitzgerald’s influence on Irish and Irish-American authors (such as Ross MacDonald, John O’Hara, or Joseph O’Neill) to his direct interaction with Irish authors and publishers he worked with while drafting The Romantic Egotist and later . I was lucky enough to chair a session on Fitzgerald’s Irish mentor Shane Leslie, “the Writer, the Priest, and the Lover,” that might have had the most lively post-presentation Q&A I’ve seen.

One of the most exciting elements Jonathan Fegley, Rabon Pennington (Kuehl Fellowship winner), and of the conference was the new David W. Ullrich at the Irish-American Hall of Fame. investigations in the legacy, influence, and parallels between the women share some unfortunate to transport our delegates to sites Fitzgeralds and the Joyces—that is, things in common as well. While across the south-east of Ireland. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce, Zelda and Lucia (both dancers Preceding our arrival at our host and and Lucia and performers) were patients of university, Waterford Institute Joyce. Although Fitzgerald and the same physician-psychologists, of Technology (WIT), our group Dustin Anderson, Jackson Bryer, Scott Donaldson, Sarah Churchwell, Horst Kruse, Walter Raubicheck, James L. W. West III at Joyce clearly mark their trajectories Bleuler and Forel, at the Burghölzli was able to explore Dublin and the John F. Kennedy Center in Wexford. in very different directions, they psychiatric hospital in Zürich at Kilkenny, take an excursion to occupy an interesting connection as virtually the same time, these Ardmore and Blarney mid-week, this “poor-man’s” tour of one of as we were properly drenched the graceful buildings from its Modernist expatriates in Paris. As women both went on to create join together for our closing my favorite cities in the world. reaching the busses to take us on 18th-century expansion. Located Hemingway explains in A Moveable types of autobiographies focusing banquet in New Ross, and travel Our group moved north from to Kilkenny and then Waterford. in Munster province, Waterford Feast, no one in Paris at the time on their cognitive shifts. The with our post-conference tour of Dublin Castle to one of the oldest By the time we reached Kilkenny, is Ireland’s oldest and 5th most was free of Joyce’s influence. The nascent ties between these four Cork. Viking dig sites at Christchurch the weather cleared and treated us populous locale at nearly 47,000 comparison between Portrait of authors have been significantly Cathedral. After a short stint at to some of the 400-year-old city’s residents, and is the main city of the the Artist as a Young Man and This enhanced through the studies Our conference got off to both Christchurch, the group began famous historic sites such as St. South-Eastern Region. Although Side of Paradise had been made displayed at this conference. an academic and prestigious start. their 4-mile tour with their second Canice’s and St. Mary’s Cathedrals, not a huge city, Waterford has a before, but our scholars more The Lord Mayor of Dublin invited stop at the country’s oldest pub, the Rothe Elizabethan House, the number of intellectual and cultural fully uncovered the roots of those While the conference advertised us to begin our conference in the the Brazen Head. Thoroughly Kilkenny Design Centre, and a tour venues, such as the three Museums comparisons. Beyond just Scott that we would be in Dublin and Council Chamber of City Hall with refreshed, the group stopped at of the Kilkenny Castle and Estate. of the Viking Triangle, including and James, the Fitzgerald and Joyce Waterford, we were actually able a presentation on the cultural and the steps of the Four Courts for a On the tour, our group was able to Reginald’s Tower (the oldest literary legacy of Joyce’s Ulysses sight of Joyce’s Chapelizod, and a get a first-hand look at the castle urban civic building in Ireland); by Professor Michael Howlett. sweep of Dublin’s historic bridges that has been an icon of Ireland’s Christchurch Cathedral; Greyfriars After Dr. Howlett’s talk, the group Welcome to the new along the Liffey, before moving tumultuous history, having played Municipal Art Gallery; the historic (already 60 strong) joined us for a on to a brief historical talk at the roles in military movements from Catholic seminary, St. John’s F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter! tour of Ulysses’ Dublin. Our tour— Dublin General Post Office, the Cromwell’s occupation to the Irish College; the Theatre Royal and later affectionately referred to as Millennium Spire, and the Earl Civil War. On Sunday evening, we Garter Lane Arts Centre; and, most It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nearly twenty-five years since we have the “How to Cross Dublin Without Street Joyce Statue. From there, ended our 100-mile journey south famously, Waterford Crystal. published this annual newsletter. We thought we would kick-off our Passing a Pub (crawl)”—began at the group was able to take in the of Dublin, in Waterford City. The celebration to the Society’s upcoming quarter-century celebration in 2017 Dublin Castle, and introduced panorama of O’Connell Street on home of Waterford Crystal gave Monday saw the conference proper with a new look. As Jay Gatsby well-knew, you can never change clothes sites from the Calypso, Lotus the way to our final stop atDavy our delegates access to castles, off to a great start. After our too often, so we decided our makeover should jazz things up as we look to Eaters, Hades, and Lestrygonians Byrne’s Pub on Grafton Street. houses, gardens, and prehistoric morning sessions—and exquisite the future. Our thanks go to Robert Beuka, who remains our editor; to Peter chapters of Ulysses (as well as sites. Waterford, a walled city of session breaks featuring fresh- L. Hays, who continues to collect and collate our news and notes; and to some other major Dublin sites). Sunday introduced our delegates Viking origins, retains much of its baked local goods like scones, tarts, our wonderful new designer, Julene Ewert, who has put the whoa! into art I was extremely happy to host to some authentic Irish weather medieval character together with sandwich rolls, and blaas—we nouveau. Best wishes for 2016! X

2 3 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter Volume 24 | April 2016 were pleased to award the Kuehl for hosting our conference, Fellowships before a talk by our particularly Head of School Richard first plenary speaker, Kendall Hayes, who graciously supported Taylor, on Edouard Jozan and our breaks and campus presentation his influence on Zelda and Scott. sites. Although he shied away American Literature After our afternoon sessions we from the spotlight, WIT Law were treated to a welcome by the Lecturer Walter O’Leary offered Association, May 2015 university’s president, Professor us continual advice, guidance, and he Fitzgerald Society sponsored two sessions at the Willie Donnelly, and an interactive local support. In a report to the Irish Coffee-making masterclass local paper, he said it was an honor American Literature Association’s 26th Annual hosted by Ray Cullen. Monday for WIT to have been chosen to Conference on American Literature at the Westin Copley night proved to be as exciting as host the international conference: T Place, Boston, Massachusetts, May 21-24, 2015. the day had begun, with a masterful “We were delighted to welcome the keynote reading by acclaimed F. Scott Fitzgerald Society to our author Carlo Gébler. Institute. The caliber of the plenary “The Postman Always Zings Twice: A Roundtable on F. Scott speakers, experts, critics and literary Fitzgerald’s The Vegetable, or From Postman to President,” the After a full day of presentations reviewers was exemplary. The Fitzgerald Society’s first sponsored session, was chaired by Gail on Tuesday, our group was able Group at St. Declan’s in Ardmore. conference certainly put Waterford to stretch their legs on our full- on the map of the international Sinclair (Rollins College) and featured Jackson R. Bryer (University day excursion to Admore, Blarney built medieval literary landscape and we hope of Maryland), Kirk Curnutt (Troy University), and Heidi M. Kunz Castle, and Blarney Woolen museum and the to work with more groups and (Randolph College). Mills. Leaving from Waterford on only building societies in the future in welcoming Wednesday morning, we traveled on the island them to Waterford and WIT.” first to Blarney Castle. Built by The second of the Society’s two sponsored sessions was a robust to incorporate (the other) Cormac MacCarthy, Waterford as a site was a real panel moderated by Maggie Gordon Froehlich (Pennsylvania State two medieval Blarney has been one of the most success. In this genuinely Irish city, chambers, the University, Hazleton) and included: “The Visual Art of Zelda Sayre iconic images of Ireland’s Munster not only were delegates introduced 13th-century province for the last 600 years. to a host of renowned literary Fitzgerald: A Critical Reputation Examined,” Roberta Shahda Choristers’ Hall After lunch in Blarney, the group specialists and speakers, they Mandrekas (Hood College); “Captive wives: Scott and Zelda, and the 15th- moved on to the fishing village were in a place where they were century Mayor’s mental illness and power relationships in relation to Save Me the of Ardmore, far off the tourist able to take the time to explore Wine Vault. path. This wild and beautiful the culture and heritage of an Waltz,” Kerri Slatus (Arizona State University); “Fitzgerald’s Crisis Walter O’Leary (Waterford Institute of Technology), peninsula is also home to Coláiste eleven-hundred-year-old city. It of Masculinity in ,” Nancy Romig (Howard Thursday and Kirk Curnutt, Mayor of Waterford John Cummins, na Rinne (Ring College), which is was an exceptional opportunity Friday returned us Jackson Bryer at the Waterford Medieval Museum. Payne University); and “Reading Between the Lies: ‘Absolution,’ the Irish-language institution on for our scholars to explore one to presentations The Great Gatsby, and the Meaning of Mendacity,” Marc Dudley the Ring Peninsula, and the only by our delegates of Fitzgerald’s key influences in a creation of the Dunbrody ship continuously Irish-speaking region and our keynotes speakers. On brand new way, and we are very (North Carolina State University). famous for transporting the Irish in the Eastern half of Ireland. One Thursday, keynote speakers excited about the research that will escaping the famine to America. of Ireland’s true hidden treasures, James L. W. West III and Scott come out of this event. It was truly The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society sponsors two sessions at the the Cliff Walk at Ardmore not only an honor to direct this conference. Donaldson brought us updates, Although the conference itself annual American Literature Association conference. This year, the provided a breath-taking view of The Fitzgerald Society is the examinations, and investigations ended on Friday evening, nearly the Irish coast, but houses one of ideal that every academic group conference returns to its practice of alternating between east and into The Cambridge Fitzgerald half of our delegates were able to Europe’s oldest ecclesiastical sites. should strive for. Not only did this west coasts, so ALA 2016 is scheduled for May 26-29, 2016, in San Edition and the Fitzgerald-Parker join us for a tour of Cork. While in The group was treated to a brief conference demonstrate the rigor relationship, respectively. After our Ireland’s “second city,” our delegates Francisco, California (and will return to Boston, Massachusetts in tour, by Walter O’Leary of WIT, and dedication of our research and morning sessions, keynote speakers toured stunningly beautiful St. of the relief-style stone carvings scholarship, it again was a model 2017). There are many ways for established and emerging scholars Sarah Churchwell & Horst Kruse Finbarr’s Cathedral and the world- in ruins of St. Declan’s cathedral, for scholarly collaboration and to be involved in the Society’s sessions. If you are interested in gave a tandem plenary session renowned 18th-century English Oratory, and Well. On our return fellowship. This is a group that truly on their insights into Gatsby. On Market. While making our way organizing a session on behalf of the Society, presenting original from Ardmore, the Comhairle celebrates the success of all of its Friday evening we wrapped up back to Waterford, we also stopped Cathrach & Contae Phort Láirge members, and there was no better research, or serving as a moderator at a future conference, please the conference with a visit to the for a tour of the Jameson Distillery (Waterford City & County Council) place to see that in action than a contact F. Scott Fitzgerald Society ALA Liaison Maggie Gordon nearby John F. Kennedy Trust at in Middleton. Strangely, no hosted a mayoral reception (or country that embodies the same the Irish America Hall of Fame for evidence has presented itself from Froehlich at mgf10_at_psu.edu for information. X Fáilte) at the Waterford Medieval spirit. X our closing banquet. In addition our time in Middleton. Museum adjacent to City Hall, to our meal and closing remarks, Dustin Anderson Maggie Gordon Froehlich and a welcome banquet from our delegates were able to explore A large part of the conference’s Mayor John Cummins. The the Irish Emigration Experience success is thanks to our partners at museum is Ireland’s only purpose- Museum and its full-scale re- Waterford Institute of Technology

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Fitzgerald Festival in the 2015 novel West of Sunset, Rockville, MD Honors recreating Fitzgerald’s final years, in 1939 and 1940, in Hollywood, James Salter and Richard then gave the Festival’s keynote Ford in 2014 and 2015 address, “Killing Fitzgerald: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and eginning with the 2014 Write the Death Scene.” Afternoon event, the annual F. Scott Writing Workshops were “The BFitzgerald Literary Festival in What, Why and How of ‘Literary’ Rockville, Maryland expanded to Fiction” by Robert Olen Butler three days of events and partnered and “Finding Your Voice in the with the Friends of the Library, Middle of History’s Living Room” Montgomery County, MD, and by memoirist and poet E. Ethelbert The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Miller, which ran concurrently with MD. The 2014 Festival, in honor of a showing of “Three Comrades,” the Fitzgerald Award recipient James 1938 movie which was the only Salter, an Air Force veteran of more film for which Fitzgerald received than 100 combat missions over screen credit. After the showing, Korea whose service experiences a panel discussion about the film were the basis of his first two was moderated by Michael Dirda novels, The Hunted (1957) and and included Murray Horwitz, Jane The Arm of Flesh (1961), focused Horwitz, and Stewart O’Nan. on the theme of “Literature and War.” The Friends of the Library Jackson Bryer, President of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival, presenting the Prizes to the winner and the sponsored a Literary Luncheon on 2015 Fitzgerald Award to runners-up in the annual F. Scott Thursday, October 16, featuring Fitzgerald Short Story Contest were John Gilstrap and Grady Smith, presented in the late afternoon by VA, for “.” Fitzgerald with an illustrated talk by Roberta both veterans who have published contest judge Richard Peabody. Award winner James Salter was S. Mandrekas, “Reframing Zelda books about their time in the The winner, BettyJoyce Nash of introduced by Roger Rosenblatt; Sayre Fitzgerald: Her Life as a military. On Friday evening, Charlottesville, VA, read from and after speaking briefly about his Visual Artist,” and with two Writing October 17, The Writer’s Center, “Summer Enrichment,” the text admiration of Fitzgerald, he read Workshops, “Out of Character: in collaboration with the Veteran’s of which was published in the from All That Is (2013), his most Populating Your Writing” by Writing Project, sponsored “Writing Festival program. The runners-up James Salter, recipient of the 2014 Fitzgerald Award, with plaque recent novel. novelist Mary Kay Zuravleff and the War Experience,” readings were Robin Duncan of Kensington, “Long-Form Journalism” by New and discussion by five writers, four War Poetry for the Non-Veteran” by Dr. Joseph Fruscione, author of MD, for “The Kedge” and Caroline The 2015 Fitzgerald Festival Yorker staff writer Margaret Talbot. of whom were veterans and all by Frederick Foote. The morning Faulkner and Hemingway: Biography Bock of Potomac, MD, for “He honored Richard Ford as the These were followed by Richard of whom have written about war concluded with James Salter of a Literary Rivalry (2012). Doesn’t Have to Say Anything.” 18th recipient of the Fitzgerald Ford’s Master Class, in which experiences––Ron Capps, Katey offering a Master Class in which he Robert Olen Butler introduced Award (no Award was given at he spoke eloquently about his Schultz, James T. Mathews, Dario offered his advice on writing fiction The day’s events culminated Richard Ford, who spoke with great the 2012 Festival). As a tribute experiences as a fiction writer. DiBattista, and Kayla Williams. and answered questions about his in the presentation by judge enthusiasm and very articulately Richard Peabody of the winners to Ford’s series of novels and craft. stories about Frank Bascombe, the Eileen McGuckian’s tour of about Fitzgerald and read from his Events on Saturday, October 18, of the annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Luncheon on October “Fitzgerald’s Haunts” began the work. X were held at the Executive Office After a lunch break, during which Short Story Contest (open to 8 featured nationally recognized afternoon activities, along with Building in downtown Rockville Eileen McGuckian conducted her residents of Maryland, , Jackson R. Bryer sportswriter and author of 27 lunch. Stewart O’Nan, author of and began with “Finding the Light,” annual bus tour of “Fitzgerald’s and the District of Columbia) and books, John Feinstein. On Friday a one-hour solo performance Haunts” in and around Rockville, the presentation of the F. Scott evening, October 9, at The Writer’s by Lisa Hayes featuring the the afternoon began with “And Fitzgerald Award for Achievement Center, acclaimed contemporary photographs of women and So We Read On: Writers Share in American Literature to James writers Robert Olen Butler, Jeffrey war by Pulitzer Prize-winning Their Favorite Fitzgerald Passages,” Salter. The winner of the Short The 2016 F. Scott Fitzgerald Festival will be held Eugenides, Howard Norman, photographer Marissa Roth. featuring Timothy Denevi, Jim Story Contest, Juliana Converse of on October 29 (with ancillary programs on and Susan Richard Shreve read Running concurrently with “Finding Lehrer, Alice McDermott, and Ashburn, VA, read an excerpt from selections from their work in October 27 and 28) at the Best Western Plus Hotel the Light” were three Writing Roger Rosenblatt. This was her story, “Accumulator,” the full “Readings in Tribute to Richard Workshops: “Memoirs––First followed by the same three Writing text of which was printed in the in Rockville, MD. The recipient of the Fitzgerald Ford.” Chapter” by Tim Denevi; “What Workshops as were offered in Festival program. The runners-up Award will be Garrison Keillor. For information, is Flash Fiction and How Can It the morning and a talk, “‘Then were Stephanie Harshman Diaz Events on Saturday, October 10, please consult the Festival website, Improve Short Stories and Novels?” Came the War’: World War I in of Rockville, MD, for “The Night were held at the Best Western fscottfestival.org, or call 301-309-9461. by Katey Schultz; and “Classic Fitzgerald’s Fiction and Letters,” Cleaner” and Sally Toner of Reston, Plus Hotel in Rockville and began

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English replaced Irish through the approximately $510 in today’s Derry, on Ireland’s north coast. centuries, the name was anglicized terms. We do not know how large She believed that the departure variously as McQuillan, Cullen, their holding was; however, with took place in 1843; certainly it Collins, McCullen, Caulfield, and 130 people living on Drumgallon’s was between 1840 and 1843. Holly. 177 acres in 1841, even prosperous All biographical writings about holdings were small by today’s Fitzgerald which give a date for the Fitzgerald’s great-grandmother standards. Under the “Ulster McQuillans’ arrival in the U.S. give was Mary (or Mollie) McQuillan Custom,” the McQuillans were Phillip’s arrival as 1843. (née Neeson), anglicized from able to sell the rest of the term of the Gaelic Mac Niadh. Through their lease and would have done so There is a family tradition that the Neeson family, Fitzgerald was before departing. the McQuillans landed in Canada. related to another major American Many emigrants disembarked in figure—Bishop Patrick Neeson Mary McQuillan, her five sons, her Halifax, St. John (New Brunswick), Lynch (1817–1882), Catholic daughter, and her brother John or in Quebec City, and then crossed Bishop of Charleston, into the U.S. After arrival, South Carolina, and the McQuillans headed for Ambassador Plenipotentiary Galena, Illinois, and were of the Confederate States definitely there in July 1844 to Europe during the when John, Patrick, and American Civil War. The Bernard McQuillan applied bishop had been born near for naturalization. They , a village claimed to have been in the about three miles from the U.S. for five years at that McQuillan home. time.

That McQuillan home A colony of Fermanagh Fitzgerald’s Roots in Ireland stood near where farm people had developed buildings now stand, on the in Galena. The majority north side of Drumgallon. were Catholic. According Ruins of Neeson Homestead The ruins of the Neeson to burial records, there family home are nearby. was at least one other By Anton McCabe Local historian Mickey McQuillan family group McPhillips, speaking to from Fermanagh there. ’m a freelance journalist, and retired councillor, publican, and lake system in Ireland. (The Bob me on June 28, 2013, They were obviously journalistic inquisitiveness teacher, in Newtownbutler, County Dylan song “The Maid of Belle Isle” described Drumgallon as related, however, because Ibrought me to investigate F. Fermanagh—who confirmed that is set in that area.) Drumgallon “not the worst land and all Fermanagh McQuillans Scott Fitzgerald’s Irish roots. Years Fitzgerald was a relative of his. is five miles north of the small not the best land in the were of the same lineage. ago I read that the writer’s maternal When I went to see Fergus on town of Newtownbutler, five south parish. It’s hilly, and the A Patrick McQuillain grandfather was from Fermanagh, a June 15, 2013, he told me that of the small town of . back of it is wet enough.” (sic) Sr. was buried in county in the southwest of Ulster, Philip J. McQuillan had been Drumgallon is a , a Indications are that the St. Michael’s Catholic the most northerly of Ireland’s four born in Drumgallon (also spelt uniquely Irish administrative McQuillans were relatively cemetery, East Galena, provinces, and that this grandfather Drumgallan), in Galloon Parish. division of land. The name comes prosperous farmers. in 1854. (See http:// was called Philip McQuillan. These Fergus also told me that several from the Irish language Droim However, depression hit jodaviess.illinoisgenweb. bits of knowledge rested for years of the McQuillan family were Galláin. Droim means a ridge or Irish agriculture after the org/cemeteries/STMichael. until, in the early summer of 2013, still living in St. Paul. He gave me back; Gallán means a standing Napoleonic Wars ended htm.) Galena was on the work went quiet. I made a list of e-mail and telephone information stone. The townland lies along a in 1815, and emigration frontier then, meaning Neeson headstone leads to investigate. for Pat McQuillan, whose father ridge; the standing stone has long from south-west Ulster that land was cheap. Being was a cousin of the writer. since disappeared. to the United States and located on the Mississippi Following up the Fermanagh Canada quickened. The first waves Neeson emigrated. It is uncertain River meant that the town had stories was fairly easy. I live in The world Philip McQuillan A family tree drawn up in the of emigrants were overwhelmingly whether they went as one group good transport links. Its lead mines Omagh, in County Tyrone, a came from is very different from 1970s by Pat McQuillan, Sr. (son Protestant; then Catholics too or at different times. Nor do we were highly productive, turning out county that borders Fermanagh. the world that his grandson won of the writer’s cousin) and Mary began to leave—including the know if any children stayed behind, eighty percent of the U.S. supply of To investigate, I started with fame writing about. Drumgallon McQuillan, both of St. Paul, McQuillans. or whether James McQuillan had the mineral in the mid-1840s. the telephone directories and is approximately eighty miles has identified Fitzgerald’s great- already died—died on the voyage, found every listing for the name west of Belfast, and ninety miles grandfather as James McQuillan. The McQuillans were sufficiently Philip F. McQuillan moved on or after arrival in North America. McQuillan in Fermanagh, and in north-west of Dublin. It is on the The McQuillan surname was well off to cross the Atlantic in from Galena to the booming city According to Scottie Fitzgerald, the neighboring areas. After a few calls, boundary of hill country to the east originally the south-west Ulster relative comfort. The average of St. Paul in his early twenties. author’s daughter, they sailed from I spoke to Fergus McQuillan, a of , the fourth biggest Gaelic surname Mac Cuilinn. As cost of a voyage was £4 per head, Many of Philip F. McQuillan’s

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descendants still live in St. Paul. Then the Americans got in touch, They maintained an awareness of through my cousin, a priest. When their background, though without they arrived it was the first time any contact with Fermanagh. Pat in one hundred and thirty-five McQuillan, Jr., is a great-great- years that any of them were back.” grandson. “Our family has been Since then, McQuillans from St. proud of its Fermanagh roots as far Paul have made several visits to back as I can remember,” he told Fermanagh. the writer in an e-mail on July 2, 2013. “As a family, we have often More recently, Pat McQuillan, Sr., marched under the Fermanagh commissioned a DNA test with County emblems at St. Patrick’s Fergus McQuillan. This proved Day parades and Hibernian events. beyond question that the families Fermanagh roots go deep, and were related. it has been a joy to strengthen The McQuillans’ native region that tie through the last several of South Ulster, extending into generations.” North Connacht, has a very rich Then, in the 1970s, contact was literary tradition. It is an area re-established between the two where different cultures became branches of the family. It was by a intermixed, giving rise to a vibrant coincidence that could have come literature. The indigenous Irish from a novel, though more likely (or Gaelic) culture was already in a Dickens novel than one by Scott place; English language and culture Fitzgerald. A photograph of Fr. were spreading up from Dublin, Fergus McQuillan at the remains of the Neeson homestead Map of Drumgallon Ignatius McQuillan was published the center of British administration in a local Irish newspaper. An for all Ireland until 1920. Scots acquaintance forwarded the paper culture was coming down from the McCabes are not related to each pits or emigrated in a state of to Pat McQuillan, Sr., in St Paul. He north coast, particularly after the other, or to this writer.) The roots destitution. contacted Fr. McQuillan, leading in the early of the contemporary American seventeenth century, when colonists writer Richard Ford, and the classic There is, of course, more yet to Fr. McQuillan’s visiting the St. to be established: about James Paul McQuillans shortly thereafter. from Scotland (principally) and novelist Henry James, are also in England were settled on half a the region. McQuillan, for example, and about Fr. McQuillan, too, was a native the voyage to the New World. To of Galloon Parish. He had noticed million acres confiscated from Gaelic chiefs. It should be remembered that quote Donald Rumsfeld, there are a resemblance in some family Philip F. McQuillan emigrated from a number of ‘known unknowns.’ members to photographs of the Many Irish writers come from the an Ireland which Britain ruled in its What is most important has been writer. The two sets of McQuillans region, or were educated there. entirety. The island was partitioned established, though, thanks to decided that they were probably They include the poets W.B. Yeats in 1920-22. was the DNA test: Fitzgerald’s origins related. and Patrick Kavanagh, and the established as a separate state are indeed in the Fermanagh Then in 1978, Pat McQuillan, Jr., prose writers John McGahern (one and remained part of the United countryside, and his relatives still and his wife, Billie, became the first of the greatest novelists of the last Kingdom; the Irish Free State live there. McQuillans to return to Fermanagh. half-century) and William Carleton, (later the Irish Republic) gained who was the only significant fiction independence. Drumgallon is just This piece could not have been They stayed in Newtownbutler written without the help of the with Fergus McQuillan, who is a writer to come from the early ten miles inside Northern Ireland. nineteenth-century Irish peasantry. McQuillan family of St Paul; cousin of Fr. McQuillan. “They were The McQuillans were fortunate Fergus and Anne McQuillan of very excited,” Fergus remembers. Shan F. Bullock was from Galloon Parish; his unjustly forgotten novels to have emigrated when they did. Newtownbutler; Mickey McPhillips Fergus McQuillan at the Neeson Headstone in Old cemetary “I had seen some articles written Galloon Parish was badly hit by the of Newtownbutler; the staff of in the late sixties, that this man, a deal with Irish peasant life in the nineteenth century. The novelists Great Famine of 1845-52, when the Mellon Centre for Migration prominent writer, had connections the potato crops failed, one million Studies at the Ulster American Folk with Newtownbutler. There Patrick and Eugene McCabe are from Clones, eight miles from Irish died, and another million Park, Omagh; Brian MacDonald were a couple of family members emigrated. In the ten years from of Rockcorry, ; that looked very similar to Scott Drumgallon: Patrick McCabe’s masterwork is The Butcher Boy, 1841 to 1851, the population of and many others, all of whom Fitzgerald. We would notice more Drumgallon fell from 130 to 69. have contributed ideas or acted as than a passing resemblance over the made into a successful film, while Eugene McCabe has written Death Many of the McQuillans’ former sounding boards. X years, even before the Americans neighbors were buried in famine arrived and set up the connection. and Nightingales and several plays and short stories. (Note: these

10 11 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter Volume 24 | April 2016

By Bret Maney

n 2012, when I was writing the always discernible” in the late “200 Claremont” in his Ledger entry first chapter of my dissertation general’s face. As reported on in for the month of March 1919. It Ion F. Scott Fitzgerald, I used the Times, the whole refers to a six-story brick and stone to take a turn, or many turns, to matter ended up before the courts apartment building erected in 1905, be exact, in Sakura Park, a modest for breach of contract and non- one year after the IRT subway quadrangle not far from Columbia payment. Finally, in 1918, five line connected the neighborhood University. Bordered on its west years after Butterfield’s widow’s to lower Manhattan. Designed side by Riverside Drive and Grant’s death, the statue of the composer by the architect John Hauser, the Tomb, on the south by Riverside of “Taps” was unveiled on the building still stands at the corner Church, on the north by the southeastern edge of Sakura Park. A of Claremont Avenue and Tiemann International House, and on the miffed Borglum signed the work on Place (then known as 127th east by Claremont Avenue, the park the top of its head because it was Street). It was to this quiet spot of was named, in 1912, for a large gift Manhattan that Fitzgerald made his of cherry trees from Imperial Japan way after departing Camp Sheridan to the United States. (‘Sakura,’ in “I was haunted always in Alabama. Japanese, means cherry blossom.) When stymied by writing, which by my other life—my Fitzgerald came north to “THE happened more often than I drab room in the Bronx, LAND OF AMBITION AND SUCCESS,” as he put it upon like to recall, I used to pace this my square foot of the park’s oval path like a hot-walked arrival in a telegram to Zelda, with thoroughbred, under autumn mists subway, my fixation the intention of making enough and in bright winter weather, in upon the day’s letter money for them to get married. The reality of life in New York shifting moods of creative frenzy from Alabama—would it and black despair. With each turn City, however, quickly shattered his on the asphalt track, I would pass a come and what would it optimism. The story of Fitzgerald’s bronze statue of Daniel Butterfield, say?—my shabby suits, drudgery at the downtown ad agency Barron Collier and of his business executive, Civil War my poverty, and love.” general, venal assistant treasurer in up-and-down monthly visits to the Grant administration towards Montgomery, leading, in June, whose tomb his statue sternly looks, to the breaking off of Scott and but best remembered today for the only part of it he felt he had Zelda’s engagement, is deftly told being the composer of the solemn not been compelled to alter. The by Bruccoli and the other major bugle tune played at military following year F. Scott Fitzgerald, biographers. In the spring of 1919, funerals, “Taps.” freshly discharged from the United Fitzgerald—the soldier who didn’t States Army, moved to a “high, get overseas and the student who The statue depicts Butterfield as horrible apartment house” two didn’t get his degree—went to a soldier in a bicorne hat, arms blocks away. work, got drunk with Princetonians, crossed, standing on a slab of most of whom seemed, in his eyes “”: Fitzgerald’s natural rock meant to recall his Fitzgerald’s first residence in New at least, to be better off, composed service at the Battle of Little York City was at 200 Claremont daily letters to Zelda, wrote reams Round Top. Made as a bequest in Avenue, a stone’s throw, I found of unsuccessful fiction, travelled Sojourn in Morningside Heights his widow’s will, it was cast by out, from the site of my anxious three times to Montgomery, and Gutzon Borglum, who would later pacing in Sakura Park, and an rode the pulsating, shaking subway become famous as the sculptor even shorter distance from my home to his Claremont Avenue of the presidential heads on Columbia University-issued rented room. According to a well- Mount Rushmore. For Borglum, housing on Riverside Drive. The known story, Fitzgerald decorated the commission proved nothing chance fact of our nearness, when the room with the rejection slips but trouble. The will’s executor, I first learned of it in Matthew J. he received in droves from the on foreign travel while the statue Bruccoli’s biography, felt like a magazines. By Bruccoli’s count, The Daniel Butterfield was being cast, decried it upon his heaven-sent sign that all would turn the twenty-two-year-old aspiring monument in Sakura Park return for not being “colossal” and out well with my Fitzgerald chapter author amassed 122 rejections for failing to capture the “strength and, later on, my dissertation. for the 19 stories and other texts Fitzgerald recorded the address he penned during the spring of

12 13 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter Volume 24 | April 2016

measured his distance from the himself an earner but at the cost of and is senescent at 40. “It social world of smart young men the “freshness of his love” (and hers, is in the twenties that the and women to which he wished to too). actual momentum of life belong. begins to slacken,” warns The story’s bittersweet ending the narrator of The Beautiful Fitzgerald’s disdain for “200 recalls Oscar Wilde’s dictum that and Damned. Later on in Claremont” did not diminish when there are two essential tragedies the same novel, a twenty- translated into his fiction. The short in life: not getting what you want, something character rues 11-block stretch of the uptown and getting it. The discovery of the “fading radiance of avenue pops up in The Beautiful unhappiness in both deprivation existence,” inadequately and Damned (1922) when the and fulfillment is, as I argue in my replaced by “little erstwhile “trust-fund kid” Anthony dissertation, one of Fitzgerald’s absorptions”—the sports Patch judges his move to a building most important themes. Thus column, motoring, the radio at the corner of Claremont and “My Lost City,” which charts the serial?—“that were creeping 127th Street, “two blocks from the privations of the Claremont Avenue avidly into his life, like rats Hudson in the dim hundreds,” as place, also records the pain of into a ruined house.” “Taps at proof of his and Gloria’s fall into success: after his book’s sparkling Reveille”—the cacophony of obscurity and poverty. “I need no début and his marriage, and while an aubade sung at the same charity calls,” he lectures his friend still being fêted as the king of the time as an elegy. Muriel who has trekked uptown to visit the couple, “you mustn’t Fitzgerald must have walked talk like a lady slum-worker even “you mustn’t talk like a by Butterfield’s statue if you are visiting the lower middle many times while worrying 200 Claremont Avenue classes.” lady slum-worker even if about Zelda, rejection 1919—a heavy enough dose of New York quarters. But the dream you are visiting the lower letters, and his unfulfilling Two years later the story “‘The rejection to paper a much larger flat of enjoying a bookish bachelor’s work downtown. In fact, I Sensible Thing’” re-uses an uptown middle classes.” and demoralize any but the most existence in Washington Square like to think that he had a West-Side address to signify committed artist. After Zelda called evaporated after he met Zelda fondness for pacing in Sakura economic pessimism and lost off their engagement in June, Scott during the war. The urgent task Park while dwelling on his chances. If “success is a matter of quit his job and went back to St. for the smitten Fitzgerald of 1919 Jazz Age, Fitzgerald recalls looking problems. It’s unknown atmosphere,” the story declares Paul to write his novel. “was to make enough money in up at the sky from a taxi while whether he knew Butterfield at the outset, then being forced the advertising business to rent a riding through a makeshift canyon as the “Taps” composer, or to call home “one room in a high, Fitzgerald’s remembrance of his stuffy apartment for two in the of city streets created by the if the Parks Department horrible apartment-house in the unhappy sojourn in Morningside Bronx” for him and Zelda. While surrounding skyscrapers: “I began had signage citing this middle of nowhere” is a sure sign of Heights left its mark on his writing. “My Lost City” curiously places to bawl because I had everything accomplishment in 1919, failure. The insurance clerk George As I wrote my chapter on The the newlyweds in the Bronx, a I wanted,” he writes, “and knew I as it does today, but if so, it O’Kelly, a stand-in for Fitzgerald, Beautiful and Damned and daily borough in which they never would never be so happy again.” would offer an enchanting is the tenant of this room. He is in passed the apartment-house where lived, presumably chosen for its At the time, he was twenty-three, piece of material evidence love with a Southern girl who is he had once lived, I kept an eye unromantic connotations, and and understood the best times were for the early-career origin of “nervous” about their engagement out for references in the literature even transposes Fitzgerald’s upper over. the title of his last published because he hasn’t proven himself to that tumultuous stage of his life. Manhattan rented room across the book and for his compressed a breadwinner. In an effort to Which brings me back to Sakura It was, after all, while residing on Harlem River, there is no doubt view of human life: the keep their relationship intact, he Park and General Butterfield. Claremont Avenue that Fitzgerald he was thinking of the Claremont ominous appearance of races between his uptown flat, his I’ve always thought the title claimed to have “passed the four Avenue place when he wrote “Taps” via the Butterfield downtown office, the telegram of Fitzgerald’s last short-story most impressionable months of my that, while struggling to keep up monument at the very bureau, and her small town in collection, Taps at Reveille, was life.” appearances at fancy garden parties start of Fitzgerald’s own Tennessee. When, tired of waiting, a good one. By suggesting the or in hotel bars, “I was haunted career as a writer when, a In “My Lost City,” the essay the girl calls off their engagement, simultaneous performance of always by my other life—my drab few months later and back about New York where he made George quits his job and decamps the bugle calls played at military room in the Bronx, my square foot in the Midwest, “Reveille” this remark, the rented room on for South America, where he makes funerals and break of day, it of the subway, my fixation upon the would sound with the Claremont Avenue stands as the his fortune. Returning to Tennessee captures Fitzgerald’s abbreviated day’s letter from Alabama—would receipt of an acceptance antithesis of the successful writer’s a moneyed man, he finds his former view of the human lifespan, with it come and what would it say?— letter from Scribner’s, and life he had dreamt for himself while fiancée still available, but when the end impinging upon the A selection from the September 11, 1918 my shabby suits, my poverty, and Fitzgerald would dash out at Princeton. In 1917, Fitzgerald he kisses her, he realizes the luster beginning. From his fiction, essays, New York Times apartment listings; love.” The unfashionable address in into the street, “stopping had caught a glimpse of such a is gone from their romance. They and correspondence, one can piece Fitzgerald’s building, then known as The the sticks, which he will go on to automobiles to tell friends life when he visited the recently had done “the sensible thing” in together a strand of the Fitzgerald Garfield, appears third from bottom describe in the same paragraph as and acquaintances about it— graduated Edmund Wilson in his delaying marriage until he proved hero who peaks in adolescence, “my home on Claremont Avenue,” my novel.” X reaches an early middle age at 30, 14 15 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter Volume 24 | April 2016

NEWS AND NOTES And yet they were well matched. Finally, on Dec. 21, 1940, Ring got Gatsby Down Under Frances Kroll Ring Maybe it was because each was a cryptic message from Graham: trying to make a fresh start on a Come quick. She hurried to In the December 27, 2015 New By Peter Llewellyn new coast. Ring had recently come Graham’s apartment and found York Times Magazine annual to California from the Bronx, Fitzgerald (tan slacks, plaid jacket) feature “The Lives They Lived,” where she grew up; Fitzgerald had sprawled on the floor. Heart attack. leasurable anticipation was mingled with nervousness when J. R. Moehringer offered this come from North Carolina, where we turned up on a recent winter’s evening for a performance remembrance of our friend Frances his estranged wife, Zelda, was In the following days and weeks, it of The Great Gatsby by the Independent Theatre Group, Ring: P confined to a sanitarium. In fact, all fell to her. Pay his bills. Pack his staged in The Space at Adelaide Festival Centre in South Australia. things. Gather his unfinished novel One day Frances Kroll Ring read to he told Ring he had just returned Pleasurable anticipation, because anything to do with Gatsby is and meet with his editor, Maxwell him from his beloved Keats. He was from an unhappy tryst with Zelda Perkins. interesting, and nervousness because it was a young cast and we lying in bed, ill, frail, probably hung in Cuba, the last time they would ever see each other. One of Ring’s weren’t sure they could pull it off. over, and the words hit him with But she never really stopped. She first tasks was to type a letter of special force. He had tears in his spent the next seven decades We needn’t have worried. The cast had settled in by the fourth conciliation and apology. eyes, so she stopped, left the room wrapping up—consoling Zelda, performance which we attended, and were word perfect with their and let him rest. Her main task, however, was the befriending Scottie, meeting with lines. journalists and scholars and fans. As F. Scott Fitzgerald surely knew that new novel. For $35 a week, she Severn did with Keats, she told the Keats, on his deathbed, was read to typed up the oversize sheets he A little imagination was needed with only one set, but it was used world again and again how it was at by his young friend Joseph Severn. covered with his knife-blunted to advantage, serving as the façade of Gatsby’s mansion, as well the end. Compiled by Did he have a sense that he was re- pencils. If he had no new pages for as the backdrop for Myrtle’s love nest, Wilson’s garage, and so on, her, she might restock his supply Peter L. Hays enacting that famous scene? That She also played a vital role in the varied with appropriate lighting changes. Not surprisingly we had of cigarettes and sodas, warm up his young friend, Ring, might be his campaign to restore Fitzgerald’s his favorite turtle soup, pick up his to imagine the yellow Rolls-Royce just somewhere off stage, and Severn? Did she? reputation. Many dismissed him groceries, run interference with his Gatsby’s swimming pool was created on the stage floor with blue as a frivolous, wanton betrayer of Their relationship began in April daughter, Scottie, a Vassar student, light. his own talent. Ring, attending 1939 with another bedside scene. and his girlfriend, Sheilah Graham, academic conferences, working By chance, Rusty’s Employment a Hollywood gossip columnist. The adaptation was cleverly done with Nick Carraway as the focal closely with biographers, bolstered Agency in Hollywood sent her to the counternarrative, testifying point. At times the actors would freeze and the spotlight would Fitzgerald’s house in Encino to Sometimes, she simply listened. to the man’s seriousness. And fall on Carraway, who would address the audience with some interview for a job as his secretary. Fitzgerald talked to Ring about when Edmund Wilson edited a explanatory dialogue, so he was both inside and outside the action. Nervously, she walked into the everything: politics, religion, family, posthumous version of “The Last house and into the bedroom and Hemingway, his publisher—his This device succeeded in establishing Carraway as both participant Tycoon,” Ring wrote the esteemed discovered the author of America’s career. He shared with her his and detached observer, true to Fitzgerald’s characterization. critic that he’d missed the point. Great Novel propped limply against sorrow at no longer being read, his determination to be good again. The book wasn’t about Hollywood; The script was pretty much straight from the book, and it was the pillows. In her 1985 memoir, “Against the it was about the tycoon, a man who interesting how little it has dated and how Fitzgerald’s writing “He was a very handsome man,” Current: As I Remember F. Scott believed in “infinite loyalty.” retains its poetic qualities when spoken aloud, even by a young she told me in 1996, when I Fitzgerald,” Ring described how Though she accomplished much Australian cast grappling with the American accent. One interesting interviewed her for the Los Angeles stirring it was to see him shake off in her own right—editor, writer, Times. “He looked very pale, and his demons and give himself to the touch was staging the party scenes with a singer in a white suit, wife, mother—Ring never escaped he had sort of faded blond hair and work—like “an athlete who had let performing numbers from the 1920s such as “If You Knew Susie” the shadow of Fitzgerald, a fact she blue-green eyes. He sat me down, himself go to fat decide that he was and “Black Bottom” to a pre-recorded soundtrack. neither resisted nor resented. There and it was a lovely room. It was a going to make a comeback.” was love and pride in her voice country farmhouse, and the sun All things considered it was a most worthwhile attempt, and pleasing when she told me that it was she was coming in, and he had me open Over 20 intense months, their to see the performance playing to a full house on the first few nights and she alone who chose the gray a drawer—and it was filled with relationship evolved. Fitzgerald cast coffin and dark Brooks Brothers suit and near full houses subsequently. empty gin bottles.” Ring in many roles, and vice versa. Father and daughter, tutor and in which Fitzgerald was buried. The season ran from September 3 to September 12. The She was 22, wholly innocent. He pupil, boon companions. At times In the most moving passage of her Independent Theatre Group’s website at www.independenttheatre. was 42, anything but. Deeply it got confusing. He made a pass memoir, she describes their final in debt, artistically discouraged, at her, which she deftly blocked. org.au has more information, including a “trailer” of highlights from moments—strangely reminiscent of physically compromised by years Throughout, she remained the Gatsby. X their first. Fitzgerald lies in the tiny of drink and by tuberculosis, the wide-eyed observer, the empathetic back room of a Los Angeles funeral disease that killed Keats. witness to his doomed desire. parlor, and Ring stares down. She

NEWS AND NOTES notes the mortician’s touchups

16 17 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter Volume 24 | April 2016

(pinked cheeks, waxen features) himself to finishing what would and she wasn’t supposed to write Fake Correspondence publisher of the Village Voice. He Gatsby, on the Right to and laments the terrible waste. At become The Great Gatsby. about it,” Donaldson said. “Taking between Fitzgerald and was also a Harvard grad whose be Forgotten last, before leaving her boss, she over her romance, making it English thesis in 1963 had covered “They find this villa near Saint- allows herself one long look, and something he had to write about, Hemingway ’s Tropic of Cancer. Maureen Dowd, in her New York one final word: Goodbye. Raphael, and he begins to live in think about, talk about, diminished When he graduated, he returned Clickhole, a satirical website from Times column reprinted in the the book, which occupies all his her. Strange psychological things to New York and began collecting The Onion that posts parodies Sacramento Bee (May 22, 2014), PLH comments: She was a sweet time. There is an English nanny for were going on. Theirs was certainly the work of abstract expressionists. of other “news” sources, posted comments on a growing movement and lovely woman. It was easy to Scottie, and Zelda is bored silly. a complicated relationship. Fast-forward to 1973, as Burden (May 12, 2015, but claiming to be centered on the right of individuals see why Fitzgerald felt comfortable She goes down to the beach and Zelda’s mental illness and Scott’s flips through a Sotheby’s catalog posted June 12, 2014) a presumed to have greater control over their with her. She will be missed. befriends three young French naval alcoholism were crucial to making a and finds a first edition ofTropic of exchange of letters between Scott digital identity through the ability officers and pairs off with one of very difficult marriage.” Cancer. He places an absentee bid and Ernest from June through to erase past history on the internet. Scott, Zelda, and Jozan them, Edouard Jozan.” on it, wins it and bingo! – a new November of 1922, as Fitzgerald Dowd notes that this has been collection is launched. Mary Ann Grossmann reported in Donaldson believes Zelda had Fitzgerald’s sent Hemingway subsequent drafts controversial among those wanting a complete digital record, especially the Pioneer Press of St. Paul (May a physical relationship with the Homosexuality of his new novel The Great Gatsby. “‘He said he purchased one lousy 3, 2015) that notable Fitzgerald young Frenchman, although some The evolving novel featured an about politicians, and for historians Cody C. Delistraty, in The Paris book by one unreadable author, but scholar and biographer Scott biographers think it was only a increasing role for a jackal-snouted and, though she doesn’t mention Review blog for April 24, 2015, it set off his mania for collecting Donaldson would give the first flirtation. man named it, perhaps sociologists. She quotes claims that while Hemingway hid fiction,’ says Carolyn Vega, assistant Richard P. McDermott Fitzgerald whom Gatsby lived to throw bricks privacy advocate Jaron Lanier, who his homosexual feelings behind a curator of literary and historical Lecture, on the subject of Zelda “If it wasn’t physical, it was still at, a character that correspondent says, “We have to give each other pose of ubermasculinity, Fitzgerald manuscripts at the Morgan Library Fitzgerald’s relationship with psychologically crucial to Zelda and Hemingway was displeased by, some space and trust and room and recognized his. “Both men had and Museum in New York. ‘He Edouard Jozan, on May 10, 2015. Scott,” he says. “It impacted their and whom Fitzgerald claimed was faith and privacy…. There should strong perceptions of what it meant was a lifelong, voracious reader, and Grossman noted that Donaldson’s relationship. They both wrote and purely fictional.Clickhole claims be a right to self-definition, self- to be gay, and set ideas of how to 20th-century American literature talk would be based on a chapter talked about it.” “all of our content panders to invention and how you present interact with their gay friends— was what his readings led him of his new book, The Impossible and misleads our readers.” A close yourself.” Otherwise, concludes Fitzgerald, who at first was happy most notably Gerald Murphy, to—Henry James, William Faulkner Craft: Literary Biography (Penn perusal of the letters indicates that Dowd, “we’re digitally doomed Jozan was keeping his wife Gertrude Stein, and Cole Porter. and Ernest Hemingway were the State University Press, 2015). they were typed (or simulated to be like Gatsby, ‘borne back company, finally realized they were Fitzgerald saw homosexuality cornerstones of his collection and Her interview with Donaldson, to look typed) on the same ceaselessly into the past.’ spending all their time together. as a weakness—less a sexual he built around them.’ portions of which follow, provided typewriter, and signed “Ernest,” He supposedly insisted on a predilection than something one background for the event: a name Hemingway disliked and “Burden died suddenly of a heart Trigger Warnings confrontation, boasting he could undergoes in times of emotional rarely used alone, only in formal attack in 1996, with no provision beat up the man who was 10 years The latest salvo in public sensitivity In the summer of 1924 Scott distress. Hemingway used fiction signatures with his last name as in his will for the collection. His younger and in better physical is to attach warnings to books Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, to broadcast his virility after a well. family decided to donate it in shape. before students read them, giving were living on the French Riviera, sexually confusing childhood. Both installments beginning in 1998 to where they’d moved to repair their were more sexually fluid than Submitted by Elizabeth Lloyd Kimbrel their parents an opportunity to “That never happened. Jozan got the Morgan Library, where he’d fraying marriage. They were short their contemporary reputations request alternate readings, or at out of town,” Donaldson says. served as trustee. Thirty of the very of money, and Scott was desperate suggest.” Quoting Angus P. Collins, least prepare the student for what “But that (threat) was important best works arrived that first year. to begin work on a new novel. Delistraty says that Fitzgerald “was the book might contain. Urban because it influences major scenes First Edition Exhibition What happened when Zelda met so often the self-confessed ‘woman’ “Now the library has organized an Dictionary defines the term Trigger in Fitzgerald’s fiction. InGatsby , at the Morgan Library a French aviator beside the blue of his marriage,” and that he exhibition called Gatsby to Garp: Warning: “Used to alert people Tom and Jay (Gatsby) are fighting Mediterranean would have a lasting “appears to have suspected that he Architects & Artisans, in its May 22, Modern Masterpieces from the Carter when an internet post, book, article, for Daisy. In , impact on her relationship with her himself was the true homosexual 2014 blog, posted an exhibition: Burden Collection. It brings together picture, video, audio clip, or some Tommy (Barban) establishes that husband and on his writing, says in his choice of vocation.” Collins “At the Morgan Library, Gatsby to nearly 100 outstanding works other media could potentially he is going to take care of Nicole, Scott Donaldson. goes on to show that Fitzgerald Garp.” from the collection, including cause extremely negative reactions and her husband, Dick, more or less accepted the possibility of his first editions, manuscripts, letters, (such as post-traumatic flashbacks accepts that. Someone says all of Things were not going well for this own homosexuality but viewed it “For book collectors, the 1980s and revised galley proofs from or self-harm) due to its content. Fitzgerald should be regarded as a celebrity couple, Donaldson said more as a basis for moral collapse were known as the Burden Decade the big guns, including Fitzgerald, Sometimes abbreviated as ‘TW.’” series of losses—loss of the love of in a phone conversation from his (“emotional bankruptcy”) than as a because New York’s Carter Hemingway, Faulkner, Mailer, New Republic reported that a one’s life, loss of the Golden Girl.” home in Arizona: “Scott and Zelda sexual attraction to men. Burden was on a tear—acquiring a Salinger, Steinbeck, and Updike.” Rutgers University sophomore had been living in and around collection of 80,000 works of 20th- suggested that an alert for F. Scott The Fitzgeralds’ marriage survived, New York for two to three years century American literature—one Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby say, but Donaldson says, “I don’t know and pretty much letting things that he’d eventually whittle down “TW: suicide, domestic abuse and if it was ever quite the same.” For evaporate in drinking and partying. to 12,000 first editions and related graphic violence.” one thing, Fitzgerald took over Fitzgerald was very conscious of material. Zelda’s life, using what happened that. In early 1924, he wrote to to her in his fiction. “He famously (his editor) that he “Burden was a descendant of said in confrontations with her had to get away and try to devote Cornelius Vanderbilt and a former psychiatrists that it was his material New York City councilman and

18 19 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter Volume 24 | April 2016

Fitzgerald Bonanza • Lettres de F. Scott Fitzgerald • Taps at Reveille (New York: • The Crack-Up, ed. Edmund • (New York: • Black and white 8 x 10 photo of from James Pepper Rare (Paris, Gallimard, 1994), later Scribners, 1935), first edition, Wilson (New York: New Scribners, 1941), first edition, Alan Ladd as Gatsby, standing edition of the previous book, first issue, from the office files of Directions, 1945). Second owner’s signature on front next to a giant mockup of The Books from the Ober Agency’s files, Harold Ober, to whom the book printing, from the files of the pastedown, facsimile dustjacket, Great Gatsby book, designed by $45. was dedicated. Ober’s bookplate Ober Agency, with their label $500. Alvin Lustig and published by James Pepper Rare Books (Santa is affixed to the front free pasted on the front endpaper, New Directions, publicizing the Barbara, CA) lists 33 Fitzgerald- • Black and white photo of endpaper and his office’s stamp and Harold Ober’s name written • The Last Tycoon (New York: 1949 film, $295. related items on its website. Most Fitzgerald standing with his 14 is on the front pastedown. With in ink by one of the firm’s Scribners, 1941), first edition, of the items seem to come from the fellow board members of the dustjacket, $15,000. staff. Pencil notes in the table with dustjacket, $3,500. • Tender Is the Night shooting office files of Fitzgerald’s agents: Princeton Tiger, the college’s of contents and a note: “I gave script by Ivan Moffat for Harold Ober, his literary agent, and • The Vegetable (New York: humor magazine (1915-16), • Taps at Reveille (New York: NBC permission to run on the the 1962 film starring Jason Harold Swanson, his film agent in Scribners, 1923), first edition, Fitzgerald third for the left. Scribners, 1935), first edition, radio today Friday Sept 4 the Robards, Jennifer Jones, and Joan Hollywood. facsimile dustjacket, $225. The men are identified by last first issue, from the files of verse on p. 159 of The Crack- Fontaine, directed by Henry name only on the verso of the Harold Swanson. Sans dustcover, King. 171 mimeographed pages, • (New Up ‘Thousand-and-First-Ship.’” • (New York: photograph, which is framed $1650. $1500. York: Scribners, 1926), a Soiled dustjacket, $375. Scribners, 1920), later printing and glazed. Photo is 9 ¾ x 13; first edition with facsimile of the novel (Sept. 1920), frame is 15 x 18 ¼. $12,500. • Tender Is the Night (New • The Crack-Up, ed. Edmund • Tender Is the Night shooting dustjacket, $650. from the file of Fitzgerald’s York: Scribners, 1934), first Wilson (New York: New script by Ivan Moffat for the • Two-page typed contract edition, first printing. Signed Hollywood agent Harold 1962 film, another copy in • Borrowed Time (London: Grey Directions, 1945), another copy between Fitzgerald and Metro- presentation copy inscribed to Swanson, whose signature original studio printed wrappers, Walls Press), a collection of of this book, this a first edition, Goldwyn-Mayer for the Ted Paramore, Jr., Fitzgerald’s appears on the front free $1250. Fitzgerald’s short stories selected in the Ober Agency files, pencil purchase of his story “Fidelity” co-writer on the MGM endpaper, and whose extensive by Alan and Jennifer Ross from notes on the table of contents. (March 24, 1938), price not film Three Comrades. The pencil notes and scoring appear • The Collection of Jonathan the office file copy of Harold Sans dustcover, $500. listed. $10,000. inscription reads, “For Ted throughout the volume. No Goodwin. (New York: Sotheby Ober, Fitzgerald’s agent. There Paramore. In memory of those • The Crack-Up, ed. Edmund dustjacket but a clamshell box, Parke-Bernet, 1977-78). Three are pencil notations on the table • Typed one-page letter days when we used to forage Wilson (New York: New $1850. volume catalog of a massive of contents and the stamp of (December 26, 1938) to Isabel in the drunken infantry under Directions, 1945), a first edition, auction sale of 20th-century the Harold Ober Agency on the • Three Comrades (Carbondale: Horton, sister of actor Edward your orders. From his friend, first issue, with dustjacket, $650. first editions and letters, “the front free endpaper. $450. Southern Illinois University Everett Horton, from whom he Scott Fitzgerald. M.G.M 1937.” greatest sale of such material was renting a cottage in Encino, • The Great Gatsby (New Press, 1978), first edition. The ever held.” Goodwin’s collection • Flappers and Philosophers Paramore’s bookplate is on the asking for a reduction in his York: First Editions Library, shooting script for the 1938 included a first edition, first (New York: Scribners, 1920), front pastedown. With first issue rent to $150 a month. “Things 1989), a facsimile copy of MGM film on which Fitzgerald issue The Great Gatsby with a Fitzgerald’s first collection dustjacket, $70,000. look a little brighter. My health the first edition with a full- got his only screen credit. $55. signed presentation to Zelda’s of short stories. First edition, is better and I really think I am • The Beautiful and Damned page, handwritten and signed sister, the broadside “The True first printing, from the file of • Two-page typed carbon contract going to work at the studios (New York: Scribners, 1922), inscription by Karen Black, who Story of Appomattox,” a first Fitzgerald’s Hollywood agent selling screen rights to “Babylon within a week. All this illness first edition, first issue, facsimile played Myrtle Wilson in the edition of Tender Is the Night Harold N. Swanson, with his Revisited” to producer Lester has, however, put me in debt dustjacket, $1500. 1974 film with inscribed to Malcolm Cowley, as signature on the front free Cowan, February 22, 1940, and it may be some months and Mia Farrow. “In this great well as manuscripts, letters and endpaper and extensive pencil amount not listed in the catalog before I am straightened out….” • The Beautiful and Damned book, when the character that I books by Hemingway, Faulkner, scoring and notes throughout description. Fitzgerald did write Signed in blue ink, “Ever yours, (New York: Scribners, 1922), play dies, her spirit is described Joyce, Pound, Stein, Steinbeck, the text. No dustjacket, $2250. a film treatment of his story sincerely and gratefully Scott first edition, second state, two by Fitzgerald as being so huge it Sinclair Lewis, Robert Frost, that was never used. Instead Fitzgerald—Very best to Eddie bookplates, no dustcover, $125. rips her mouth when it escapes Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, • Lettres a Zelda et Autres a bloated film, updated post- [her brother] if you’re with in death. I went to the director, etc. Letters and inscriptions Correspondences (Paris, • The Beautiful and Damned (New WWII, with him.” $9500. Jack Clayton, and asked that my are reproduced. 226 pages, Gallimard, 1985), first French York: Scribners, 1922), second and Van Johnson was released in edition of Fitzgerald’s letters to mouth be made-up to include paperbound. $65. • Six and printing, from the files of the 1954. $15,000. his wife Zelda, a paperbound the tears. He agreed. I won the Other Stories (New York: Ober Agency, no dustjacket, book, the file copy from Harold Golden Globe for this film. • Black and white 8 x 10 photo Scribners, 1960). A compilation $650. Ober and Associates. (Ober Karen Black.” With facsimile of Alan Ladd as Gatsby, with of six stories from 1922’s himself died in 1951). $45. • The Beautiful and Damned dustjacket and cloth slipcase, fellow cast members of the Tales of the Jazz Age and three (New York: Scribners, 1922), $650. 1949 film, Betty Field (Daisy), from All the Sad Young Men • Lettres de F. Scott Fitzgerald first edition, second state, in Macdonald Carey (Nick), Ruth (1925), with an introduction by • The Last Tycoon (New York: (Paris, Gallimard, 1965), first green morocco leather with Hussey (Myrtle), Barry Sullivan Fitzgerald’s daughter Scottie. Scribners, 1941), second French edition, paperbound, Fitzgerald’s facsimile signature (Tom) and Howard Da Silva The book is from the files of printing, facsimile dustjacket, with Andrew Turnbull’s preface stamped on the front board, (George Wilson). $295. H. N. Swanson, his Hollywood $185. translated into French, again $750. from the files of Harold Ober agent, with the agency’s stamp and Associates, $45. on the front free endpaper. $350.

20 21 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter Volume 24 | April 2016

Robert Stone on Gatsby of failing to understand, on first treated American obsessiveness so reading, what the book was about fully engaged, with heedless love at “It was a rereading of The Great to realizing that of all American full tilt, with such wild asymmetry Gatsby that made me think about novels it had the clearest insight of passion. When the day came writing a novel.” Paris Review, 98: into who we are and who we that Gatsby opened its mysteries Winter 1985. desperately hope to become. No to me, I felt I’d been awarded a American novel ever described or national treasure—what may be the In a longer statement, published in defined the American condition subtlest and most insightful work of AARP Magazine (February/March with such precision and eloquence.” literature that ever took this nation From the Catalogs 2014), Stone says that he first read as its subject.” From Ken Lopez’s catalog 164 the uncorrected errors “chatter” on Gatsby when he was fifteen, and Further, Stone states that “Gatsby (March 2015) comes the offer of p. 60, “sick in tired” on p. 205, and “during the 10 years following, I is a man at the center of a mystery. Robert Stone died January 10, a first edition, first printing (one of “Union Street station” on p. 211. read the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The mystery is his unquenchable 2015. 7600) of Tender Is the Night (New Missing the dustjacket but in a half- four times. I thought it was a great desire to take possession of America York: Scribners, 1934). One of 19 morocco clamshell box, $3750. story…. I passed from a condition itself. No other novel has ever copies signed by Fitzgerald at his Between the Covers (Gloucester home in Baltimore for the book City, NJ) offers two rare items in buyer at the Hochschild, Kohn its Catalog 196 (October 2014). department store. Lacking dust The first is the British edition jacket, $25,000. first edition ofThe Great Gatsby From a British clothing catalog, (London: Chatto and Windus, submitted by Sybil Kretzmer: The 1926). Fitzgerald’s first English cover of Tender Is the Night, and Scottie Fitzgerald, and Joan Kerr, publisher, William Collins, declined a caption: “Make like Fitzgerald’s first edition, with dust jacket, $200. to publish The Great Gatsby, saying glamourous heirs and dandies And a novel, a bibliomystery by that to do so “would be to reduce gadding about the South of France David Handler, The Man Who the number of his readers rather and lighten your wardrobe with Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald (New than to increase them.” Chatto and pastel tones from Burberry and York: Bantam, 1990), first edition, Windus only printed 1500-3000 Calvin Klein.” Pictured are a signed by Handler, winner of the copies, in contrast to Scribners’ Mystery Writers of America Edgar printing of 20,870. $9500. Gay and Joe Haldeman with Wendi Swidler Sadaf Fahim-Hashemi and Sarah Churchwell Burberry London cashmere coat, £1665; a Maison Margiella Blazer, award for best paperback original of The second item offered are three £717; Daks linen trousers, £195; 1990, $50. copies of Motor: The National and an Aspinall of London leather Raptis Rare Books (Brattleboro, Magazine of Motoring (New card case, £50. I don’t believe Dick VT) in its catalog 20, offers two York, February-April, 1924), Diver had need of a Dunhill leather rare Fitzgerald items. The first is the magazine that published iPhone case (powder blue, £125), a set by Scribners of eight first Fitzgerald’s essay “The Rolling nor do I think he would have worn editions, first printings, published Junk” in those three issues, an a Linea T-shirt (£10). 1920-1935: This Side of Paradise, account of a trip to Zelda’s home From Mordida Books in Houston, Flappers and Philosophers, The in Montgomery in their trouble- Tom Bevilacqua, Gail Sinclair, Park Bucker, TX, Catalog 87 (June 2015) Vegetable, Tales of the Jazz Age, The prone Marmon auto, complete with Dustin Anderson, and Farrah Senn Fitzgerald’s “The Mystery of the Great Gatsby, All the Sad Young photographs of Scott and Zelda Men, Taps at Reveille, and Tender in their matching white touring Rick Morrison and William Blazek Maria Mastandrea Raymond Mortgage,” from Ellery Queen’s 15 Annual Mystery (New Is the Night. Although mentioned outfits. Each magazine has pictorial York: Random House, 1960). First in the description of Fitzgerald’s wrappers designed by Howard edition. A reprint in hardcover of prowess as a novelist beneath a Chandler Christy, and the set is Fitzgerald’s first published work in picture of the set, The Beautiful and housed in a custom cloth slipcase; St Paul’s Academy’s Now and Then, Damned, with an inappropriate $6000. when he was 12; the Ellery Queen “the” preceding “Damned,” seems Submitted by Jackson Bryer compilation also has the work of actually missing from the eight 16 other, more mature, short story volumes pictured. All are bound writers. With dust jacket, $75. by Bayntun-Riviera in dark green The Romantic Egoists, (New York: morocco, with Fitzgerald’s signature Charlotte Diop, Elisabeth Bouzonviller, Rick Morrison, Scarecrow, 1974), the pictorial stamped on the front panel of each Maríe-Agnés Gay, Catherine Nancy, Sara Antonelli, autobiography of Scott and Zelda, volume in gilt. $15,000. The second Maggie Gordon Forelich, Jennifer Nolan, and and Beverly Curnutt edited by Matthew Bruccoli, item is a first edition, first state Beverly Curnutt printing of The Great Gatsby, with

22 23 The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter

Great Gatsby Cocktail The Zinfandel Grille, a popular Sacramento eatery, features a Great Gatsby cocktail. It’s described as being made from Ketel One Vodka, St. Germain, fresh-squeezed grapefruit, and a splash of sparkling wine. Fitzgerald drank copious amounts of gin, as Frances Kroll Ring tells us, but no mention of vodka, less well known or popular in the 20s and 30s. St. Germain liqueur was not sold until 2007, nor do I think he ever lived on that boulevard, although he was nearby at rue Mézières in 1929. Grapefruit juice is an ingredient in Hemingway’s famous daiquiris, the Papa doble; it doesn’t seem to hold a large place in either Fitzgerald’s or Gatsby’s biographies. Sparkling wine, however, one can imagine was popular with Scott, Zelda, and Gatsby’s guests.

TH E F SCOTT FITZGERALD SOCIETY N EWSLETTER Please send news and notes to Professor Peter Hays, English Department, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616. Email: [email protected].

The F. Scott Fitzgerald Newsletter is published annually by the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society and is edited by Robert Beuka, English Dept., Bronx Community College, Bronx, NY 10453. MARK YOUR Please submit articles to Email: [email protected] CALENDARS Society dues are $30 ($25 for students and retirees). Please send inquiries The 14th International about membership and dues to Prof. Kirk Curnutt, English Department, Fitzgerald Society Troy University, Montgomery Campus, Montgomery AL 36103-4419. Conference, “Fitzgerald in St. Email: [email protected] Paul,” will be held in St. Paul For more about the Society, please visit the MN from June 25 to July 1 F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Website: 2017. A call for papers will be www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org issued on June 1, 2016 Design and layout by Julene Ewert | www.juleneewert.com

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