The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

As part of an ongoing series for The Lewis and Clark Library’s Adult Education program, Randall LeCocq is offering a class/discussion group on the short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Classes will be held Wednesday mornings from 10 to 11:30 AM, in the Library’s large meeting room. A registration sheet is available at the Information Desk, which has handouts of the assigned readings.

For the website: The class will look at Fitzgerald’s life and work, focusing on five of his most highly acclaimed short stories. Using these stories, we will examine some of Fitzgerald’s central themes: young love and the loss of illusion, the perils of wealth, and “emotional bankruptcy” which comes from fast living.

The five short stories will take us through four phases of Fitzgerald’s life, from early success, through Expatriate life in Europe, to Zelda’s breakdown and his own “crack up,” and eventually to his own rejuvenation. We will conclude with Fitzgerald’s non-fiction essays commenting on the Jazz Age and Great Depression, and causes for his own decline.

Randall LeCocq, a Helena resident, holds a Master’s Degree in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he specialized in literature and art history. He has taught previous courses at the Library on the novels and short stories of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.

Class Schedule:

May 23: “Winter Dreams” (1922) May 30: “Absolution” (1924) June 6: “The Rich Boy” (1926) June 13: “The Rough Crossing” (1929) June 20: “Babylon Revisited” (1931), plus autobiographical excerpts from “My Lost City,” (1932) “Echoes of the Jazz Age,” (1931) and “The Crack Up.” (1936)