Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby

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Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby Page 39

by Churchwell, Sarah


  “Even the grief he could have borne”: “Winter Dreams,” Short Stories, pp. 235–36.

  “At last we were one with New York”: Fitzgerald, “My Lost City,” The Crack-Up, pp. 28–29.

  “because as a restless and ambitious man”: Milford, Zelda Fitzgerald, p. 319.

  “about Zelda & me. All true”: Dear Scott / Dear Max, p. 113.

  “She was something desirable and rare”: “The Sensible Thing,” Short Stories, p. 301.

  “A writer whom it is a joy to read”: New York Times, October 29, 1922.

  “You are right about Gatsby being blurred”: A Life in Letters, pp. 101, 126.

  “Splendor . . . was something in the heart”: Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night, 1934. Reprint London: Penguin Classics, 2010, p. 68.

  V. THE MEETING ALL AN INVENTION. MARY

  “There was a kindliness about intoxication”: The Beautiful and Damned, 1922. Reprint London: Penguin Classics, 2010, p. 338.

  “in an offhand manner that the case”: Tribune, November 1, 1922.

  “astonishing, rambling statement”: World, November 1, 1922.

  “forced to believe [her] in other aspects”: ibid.

  local officials started looking for fingerprints: Tribune, November 2, 1922.

  “the disgusting Hall–Mills affair”: Town Topics, November 2, 1922.

  “Embittered by poverty”: Baltimore News, November 1922.

  “poise”; “perfect self-control”; “an inexplicable phenomenon”: Tribune, November 5, 1922.

  “Not even the tutoring of a lifetime”: ibid.

  “There has been so much criticism here”: Town Topics, November 9, 1922.

  “has been called all sorts of names”: ibid.

  “Petronius is Sunday School literature”: The New Republic, November 1, 1922.

  “Well, I guess the children have left”: Andrew Turnbull. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography. London: The Bodley Head, 1962, Scott Fitzgerald, p. 130.

  “Dearest Lud—I’m running wild”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “I told them you were richer than God”: ibid.

  reported the game in his column: Franklin Pierce Adams, Diary of Our Own Samuel Pepys, p. 362.

  “think of that horse’s ass F.P.A.”: A Life in Letters, p. 140.

  advertisement . . . declaring that it had hired Lothrop Stoddard: Tribune, November 2, 1922.

  “this man Goddard”: During Fitzgerald’s time at Princeton he may also have encountered a professor named Goddard, confusingly enough, who also gave a series of eugenicist lectures, which may be the “Stoddard Lectures” that Owl-Eyes pulls from Gatsby’s shelves in Chapter Three. It is quite possible that Fitzgerald intended to name names and mixed the two up. He had cheerfully given other real-life miscreants their own names in the novel, and one eugenicist does sound much like another.

  “Look for the Fay Cab”: Tribune, November 2, 1922.

  Fay expanded his taxi fleet: See Peretti, Nightclub City, Chapter One.

  “the societies which rally”: New York Times, July 30, 1922.

  Swastika Fruit Company, rumored to be a bootlegging front: New York Times, July 3, 1922.

  “a particularly brilliant day”: Van Vechten, The Splendid Drunken Twenties, p. 14.

  “stood on her head, disrobed”: ibid, p. 11

  “All the literary, theatrical and cinema world”: Tribune, November 12, 1922.

  “The food was execrable”: Tribune, November 12, 1922.

  “One hundred percent Americanism”: Tribune, November 10, 1922.

  “all the kept women & brokers in New York”: Van Vechten, The Splendid Drunken Twenties, p. 14.

  “It was on the train”: Quoted in Crunden, Body and Soul, p. 208.

  “It started out with a weird, spinning sound”: Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby. James L. W. West III, ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2000, p. 42.

  “‘The story I told the authorities’”: New York Times, November 5, 1922.

  “which accounts for her agility at midnight”: Tribune, October 27, 1922.

  “It has been established to the satisfaction”: Tribune, November 4, 1922.

  “It’s an amazing story”: Kunstler, The Hall–Mills Murder Case, p. 80.

  “romantic inaccuracies in her story”: Tribune, November 4, 1922.

  “gave a vivid account of hearing a man’s voice”: New York Times, October 31, 1922.

  “What difference does it make”: ibid.

  “filled his house at this time”: Pegolotti. Deems Taylor, p. 101.

  “one of the most forceful men I have ever met”: ibid, p. 72.

  “beglamored by the idea of Scott Fitzgerald”: Wilson, The Twenties, p. 62.

  “there was something petulant”: Milford, Zelda Fitzgerald, p. 68.

  “rush after New Year’s Eve”: Quoted in Harrison Kinney, Thurber: His Life and Times, 1995, p. 379.

  “I couldn’t seem to get sober enough”: Turnbull, Scott Fitzgerald, p. 125.

  “Zelda and her abortionist”: In Milford, p. 88; Taylor, p. 114; Cline, p. 125; Mellow, p. 147; Wagner-Martin, p. 64.

  Scott wrote in his notebooks of a son: Fitzgerald, The Notebooks of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 244.

  “We find them both rather changed”: Wilson, Letters, pp. 78–79.

  “Your catalog is not complete”: Bruccoli, A Life in Letters, p. 51.

  “a thing of bitterness and beauty”: Tribune, November 5, 1922.

  “reflect our present condition of disruption”: Edmund Wilson, Saturday Literature Review, November 25, 1922.

  “Mr. Eliot’s trivialities are more valuable”: ibid.

  “In fact, it seems to me the first step”: The Crack-Up, p. 310.

  “the Yale Bowl, with lamps”: Pegolotti, Deems Taylor, p. 267.

  “We have been having a hell of a time”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “in Great Neck there was always disorder”: Zelda Fitzgerald, Collected Writings, p. 452.

  “where Zelda and Helen became drunk”: Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p. 208.

  “For Helen and Jean”: Bruccoli, Fitzgerald in the Marketplace, p. 80.

  “Helen—not of Troy”: ibid, p. 81.

  “Gene didn’t make any comment”: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers.

  Beauty fires us with the faith: Sparrow, “Footloose Philosophy,” p. 130.

  “because it interfered with the neatness of the plan”: A Life in Letters, p. 76.

  “Imagination, not invention”: Conrad, A Personal Record: Some Reminiscences, Zdzislaw Najder and J. H. Stape, eds. Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 35.

  “synchronized clocks on the north and south”: New York Times, December 13, 1922.

  “haunted by time”: Cowley, “The Romance of Money.”

  “We do love the center of things”: Zelda Fitzgerald, Collected Writings, p. 201.

  “Can’t you come? Dos Passos”: Wilson, Letters, p. 98.

  Swope told reporters: Tribune, November 8, 1922.

  changing the channels of their avidity: Fitzgerald, The Notebooks of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 322.

  “because it shows classes in movement”: ibid.

  “You danced elbow to elbow”: Fitzgerald, “My Lost City” The Crack-Up, p. 28.

  “Mary Hay—that is, she differs”: Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p. 337.

  In April 1930 Zelda published a sketch: Zelda Fitzgerald, Collected Writings, pp. 317–25.

  Fitzgerald said was based on Mary Hay: As Ever Scott Fitz, 146.

  “imagine the divergent New Yorks”: Tribune, August 6, 1922.

  “statements and romantic stories”: Tribune, November 10, 1922.

  “no greater calamity could befall workers”: Times, November 7, 1922.
<
br />   “in the court of public opinion”: World, November 11, 1922.

  “a formal court trial as a rank extravagance”: ibid.

  “at the hour the pig-raising Amazon”: Tribune, November 13, 1922.

  “talks in bunches. I don’t think she’s reliable”: New York Times, November 14, 1922.

  “being treated with seriousness”: Tribune, November 12, 1922.

  “when American writers”: New York Times, November 12, 1922.

  “the Star-Spangled Banner can never”: Tribune, June 11, 1922.

  “The critics, one and all”: Reprinted in Conversations with F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 34.

  “prefers piquant hors d’oeuvres”: ibid.

  VI. BOB KERR’S STORY. THE 2ND PARTY.

  “The thing which sets off”: H. L. Mencken, The American Credo: A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the Modern Mind, 1920.

  “but he is unable to get seats”: Van Vechten, The Splendid Drunken Twenties, p. 15.

  “half a quart of my best bourbon”: ibid, p. 16.

  “was very spectacular and”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “This is a very drunken town”: In A Life in Letters, Bruccoli dates this letter some time “after November 18, 1923,” but the Yale game referred to, which Princeton won 3–0, was played on November 18, 1922. By November 1923 the Kalmans had already visited New York, as Zelda wrote to them in July 1923 about their recent visit. Thus, the internal evidence of this letter suggests strongly that the correct year is 1922 and that the date 1923 in the published letters is a mistake (or a misprint, given the correct date of November 18 for the Yale game).

  “lured John Dos Passos back to New York”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  would not be reported in America: New York Times, December 10, 1922.

  “Biography as Fiction”: New York Times, November 19, 1922.

  Witnesses would include: New York Times, November 19, 1922.

  “The motive accepted by Mr. Mott”: World, November 20, 1922.

  “A jury will decide between”: Tribune, November 16, 1922.

  ambassador to Britain had given a talk: New York Times, October 24, 1922.

  Ring Lardner said: Tribune, October 25, 1922.

  Paul Hamborszky: Tribune, November 18, 1922.

  become a used-car salesman: New York Times, November 18, 1922.

  “the authorities do not consider”: ibid.

  “murder museum”; “soda water”: New York Times, November 17, 1922.

  The crab apple tree had disappeared: New York Times, November 19, 1922.

  “burned up New Jersey roads”: Tribune, November 19, 1922.

  “having read much about”: World, November 20, 1922.

  “from Chicago by the dirty channels”: New York Times, November 19, 1922.

  “there are too many common people”: ibid.

  long list of books he recommended: Sheilah Graham, College of One, p. 123.

  “Scott and I were ‘buzzing’”: Joseph Corso. “One Not-Forgotten Summer Night: Sources for Fictional Symbols of American Character in The Great Gatsby.” Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual (1976), 18.

  most celebrated piece of investigative journalism: Tribune, January 28, 1922.

  implied that Nellie Bly was not only his mistress: See Corso, “One Not-Forgotten Summer Night: Sources for Fitzgerald’s Symbols of American Character in The Great Gatsby,” FH/A 1976, pp. 8–33.

  “The part of what you told me”: A Life in Letters, p. 75.

  “Dear Bob, Keep reading”: A Life in Letters, p. 102.

  “not praise a book like that beautiful”: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbook.

  “If an author wants 2 cols”: Frederick Jackson Turner papers, Huntington Library.

  prohibition had divided America: Tribune, November 12, 1922.

  “The Wild West’s Own New York”: New York Times, March 5, 1922.

  “FICTION PUT TO SHAME”: Tribune, November 20, 1922.

  “the cold, proud woman of Southern blood”: Tribune, November 11, 1922.

  “dazed and stupid and uncomprehending”: Tribune, November 11, 1922.

  “a pathetic little salamander”: Tribune, November 20, 1922.

  The salamander liked “perilous adventures”: Joplin [MO] Times, June 18, 1922.

  “believed I was a Salamander”: Milford, Zelda Fitzgerald, p. 176.

  “Seats selling eight weeks in advance”: World, November 20, 1922.

  “probably does not know himself”: Times, November 21, 1922.

  “you must feed the masses”: New York Times, November 21, 1922.

  “I protect pocketbook as well as person”: “Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar,” Short Stories, p. 246.

  “He drives on to his Elizabethan villa”: ibid, p. 237.

  “Ronald here’d no more think”: ibid, pp. 249–50.

  “the number of feminine witnesses called”: Tribune, November 23, 1922.

  “a thin, emaciated, drooping man”: New York Times, November 23, 1922.

  “James Mills sat stonily”: Tribune, November 23, 1922.

  requested his witness fee: New York Times, November 23, 1922.

  “as lugubrious as usual”: Tribune, November 27, 1922.

  “hoping for a ‘break’”: World, November 25, 1922.

  Daisy draws the line at sharing her hairdresser: Trimalchio, p. 85.

  “Paul Whiteman played”: Zelda Fitzgerald, Collected Writings, p. 48.

  “In the real dark night of the Soul”: Fitzgerald, “Pasting It Together,” The Crack-Up, p. 63.

  she found her novel’s title: Bryer and Barks, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda, p. 207

  all women’s colleges should be burned: New York Times, November 23, 1922.

  “To one large turkey add one gallon”: Fitzgerald, Notebooks, p. 183.

  champagne “flowed like the Rhine”: World, June 7, 1922.

  “GOLD AND COCKTAILS”: New York Times, November 22, 1926.

  “My mentioning our having had lunch”: Tribune, November 26, 1922.

  “The substance of the conversation”: John Farrar, ed. Literary Spotlight. New York: Doran, 1924, p. 257.

  “he quoted me so much and so inaccurately”: Wilson, Letters, p. 97.

  “I enclose Burton Rascoe’s report”: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers.

  “I told her, full of hope”: Wilson, Twenties, pp. 147–48. In the published version, Wilson changes the Rascoes’ names to “Belle and Clem,” but Wilson’s biographer Lewis Dabney identifies them from the manuscripts as the Rascoes.

  “engaged in combat with Mr. Burton Rascoe”: Jeffrey Meyers, Edmund Wilson: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995, p. 46.

  Rascoe bit Bunny Wilson on the nose: Dabney, Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature, pp. 100–1.

  “never gets full credit now”: Wilson, Letters, 168.

  “The great novel of the past fifty years”: Fitzgerald, “10 Best Books I Have Read,” in Bruccoli, ed., F. Scott Fitzgerald on Authorship, p. 86.

  “the meaning of an episode was not”: Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1899. Reprint London: Penguin Classics, 2007, p. 6.

  “it is an exact portrayal of a very notorious”: Rascoe, Daybook, p. 31.

  “Fiction is history, human history”: Conrad, “Henry James: An Appreciation.” North American Review (1916).

  “until today her movements had been”: Tribune, November 28, 1922.

  He claimed it was just a coincidence: New York Times, November 28, 1922.

  grand jury withdrew in midafternoon: New York Times, November 29, 1922.

  “the expense of a trial that might”: ibid, 1922.

  “there was not the remotest possibility”: World, November 29, 1922.

  “who invented an entirely fictitious career”: Cri
tical Assessments Vol II,–67.

  “the newspapers with thin copy”: Van Vechten, Parties, p. 212.

  Fania Marinoff, hated it: Van Vechten, Splendid Drunken Twenties, pp. 286, 299.

  Fitz drew up a household budget: Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p. 224.

  “literary and artistic tea party”: Rascoe, A Bookman’s Daybook, p. 291.

  VII. THE DAY IN NEW YORK

  The revels went on for weeks: Save Me the Waltz, Collected Writings, p. 95.

  “Rules For Guests At the Fitzgerald House”: Boyd, Portraits, p. 223.

  “The remarkable thing about the Fitzgeralds”: Wilson, Letters on Literature and Politics, p. 478.

  “I guess so. We were awfully good showmen”: Milford, Zelda Fitzgerald, p. 275.

  “we had retained an almost theatrical innocence”: Fitzgerald, My Lost City, p. 111.

  “Scott loved to recount the episode”: George Jean Nathan, “The Golden Boy of the Twenties,” Esquire, October 1958, pp. 148–53.

  “Nothing about you ever fades.”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “I accordingly took him to a house”: George Jean Nathan, “The Golden Boy of the Twenties,” Esquire, October 1958, pp. 148–53.

  Edmund Wilson’s 1923 essay: Edmund Wilson, “The Delegate from Great Neck: Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Mr. Van Wyck Brooks,” New Republic, April 30, 1924. In Critical Assessments Vol I, pp. 400–8.

  “natural idealist, a spoiled priest”: Mizener, The Far Side of Paradise, p. 345.

  “fell asleep over the soup”: Van Wyck Brooks. Days of the Phoenix: The 1920’s I Remember. New York: Dutton, 1967, p. 109.

  “what I might ironically call our ‘private’ life”: Turnbull, Letters, p. 380.

  “party must be arranged”: Ernest Boyd. Portraits: Real and Imaginary. 1924. Reprint New York: AMS, 1970.

  “fight for a real investigation”: New York Times, December 2, 1922.

  Conan Doyle wrote to the New York Times: New York Times, December 10, 1922.

  “There is a trend”: New York Times, December 4, 1922.

  the monkey “dropped right into Mrs. Powell’s lap”: Tribune, December 5, 1922.

  “A monkey was shot near Babylon”: World, December 6, 1922.

  “human sympathy has its curious limits”: Trimalchio, p. 104.

  “preserve the sense of mystery”: Turnbull, Scott Fitzgerald, p. 515.

 

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