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

by Churchwell, Sarah

  “I didn’t go into the ethics”: New York Times, November 28, 1922.

  In the early months of 1920: Tribune, October 25, 1922.

  “the Snyder–Gray and Hall–Mills murder cases”: Rascoe, We Were Interrupted, p. 218.

  “the world seemed to have gone mad”: ibid, p. 265.

  “venturesome souls . . . from the days of Columbus”: New York Times, January 16, 1921.

  a story from Scott entitled “Recklessness”: Some have speculated that the story “Recklessness” might have been published as “Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar,” although Fitzgerald’s ledger always refers to “Dice, Brassknuckles” by that title and so does Zelda’s 1930 letter reminiscing about the Great Neck days.

  “The girl is excellent of course”: Dear Scott / Dear Max, p. 52.

  Fitzgerald clipped out a newspaper advertisement: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbook.

  “We thoroughly believe that if”: World, December 11, 1922.

  “Quite a lot of the frenzy”: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbook.

  “It serves to purge the hero”: ibid.

  “clip for preservation”: Burton Rascoe Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania.

  “That winter to me is a memory”: Zelda Fitzgerald, “A Millionaire’s Girl,” Collected Writings, p. 330.

  “When people fail in the national viewpoint”: New York Times, December 14, 1922.

  “her daughter was driving fast”: New York Times, November 16, 1922.

  “Gains Weight, Gets Damages”: New York Times, December 14, 1922.

  “American Civilization on the Brink”: New York Times, June 12, 1921.

  “Everybody followed it”: Tribune, December 10, 1922.

  “shielded by the cloak of anonymity”: New York Times, December 10, 1922.

  “I note what you say with reference”: ibid.

  “Imagine that doctor not reporting”: New York Times, December 19, 1922.

  “than the public suspect”: New York Times, December 13, 1922; December 11, 1922.

  “the police have sent out a general alarm”: World, December 8, 1922.

  “with springs so perfectly adjusted”: Town Topics, February 2, 1922.

  “‘GOSSIP’ REAL MURDERER OF MRS. MEADOWS”: Evening World, August 2, 1922.

  “The Government might just so well issue”: World, December 16, 1922.

  “supplementing her former story”: New York Times, December 20, 1922.

  “The crime was committed”: ibid.

  “leading a cow near where the collision”: New York Times, January 27, 1922.

  Davies made headlines again: New York Times, June 26, 1922.

  “the State then put the teeth in evidence”: New York Times, December 21, 1922.

  “This ‘Minnie McGluke’ stands for”: Conversations with F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 51.

  The World was highly amused: World, December 22, 1922.

  “Highball Epic”: New York Times, December 21, 1922.

  “Our literature seemed to me”: Van Wyck Brooks, Days of the Phoenix, p. 170.

  “Things are always beginning”: Wilson, Twenties, p. 95.

  “You may have spoken in jest”: A Life in Letters, p. 47.

  “Your time will come, New York”: “Three Cities,” Brentano’s Book Chat, 1 (September–October 1921), pp. 15, 28. In His Own Time, p. 126.

  On Christmas Eve, Rascoe reported: Tribune, December 24, 1922.

  “They don’t know whether to begin”: Tribune, August 20, 1922.

  “If this fellow Sandburg will use slang”: ibid.

  American slang was so incomprehensible: New York Times, December 17, 1922.

  a helpful glossary, including: New York Times, December 12, 1922.

  “The story of our national life”: New York Times, December 24, 1922.

  “speed production”: ibid.

  “Want truer history books”: Times, December 19, 1922.

  Zelda wrote Scott ten years later: Bryer and Barks, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda, p. 68.

  “just for a moment, the ‘younger generation’”: “My Lost City,” The Crack-Up, p. 27.

  “astounding holidays”; “about a week before Christmas”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “fiction writers have emancipated themselves”: New York Times, December 24, 1922.

  “Reading it over one can see”: Fitzgerald, Introduction to The Great Gatsby, New York: Modern Library, 1934.

  “by the power of the written word”: Joseph Conrad. The Nigger of the Narcissus: A Tale of the Forecastle. New York: Doubleday, 1914, p. xiv.

  “As Conrad says in his famous preface”: ALS unpublished letter, privately owned. Quoted by Christie’s catalog, 1997.

  “take the Long Island atmosphere”: “My Lost City,” The Crack-Up, p. 29.

  “strong draughts on Zelda’s and my”: A Life in Letters, p. 170.

  “There is no materialist”: Zelda Fitzgerald, Collected Writings, p. 57.

  “dig up the relevant, the essential”: The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 447.

  “did not stop, because we believed”: Tribune, December 27, 1922.

  justification for running Carberry over: New York Times, December 27, 1922.

  “thinks that when he is arrested”: In His Own Time, pp. 186–87.

  “the theater is no longer what it used to be”: Tribune, December 17, 1922.

  And so, in forty more years, Rascoe predicted: ibid.

  “on a course like ‘English Prose since 1800’”: A Life in Letters, p. 457.

  “Like all your stories there was”: Bryer and Barks, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda, p. 210.

  VIII. THE MURDER (INV.)

  Fitzgerald wrote to his agent: Fitzgerald. As Ever, Scott-Fitz: Letters Between F. Scott Fitzgerald and His Literary Agent, Harold Ober, 1919–1940, Matthew J. Bruccoli, ed., London: Woburn, 1972, p. 51.

  “Life is not dramatic; only art is that”: Tribune, December 31, 1922.

  “Perhaps all this fidgeting that we call change”: Tribune, December 31, 1922.

  “The new world couldn’t possibly be”: Fitzgerald, “Early Success,” reprinted in Afternoon of an Author, p. 161.

  “by throwing everybody’s hat”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “Come and bring a lot of drunks”: Virginia Spencer Carr. Dos Passos: A Life. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2004, p. 192.

  the titles had been rejected: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbook.

  “it seems so much longer”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “but it is fashionable only as Rolls-Royces”: New York Times, November 5, 1923.

  “February: Still drunk”: Fitzgerald Ledger: A Facsimile, pp. 177–78.

  “we were no longer important”: Fitzgerald, “My Lost City,” p. 29

  “As a boy and youth Fitzgerald”: Town Topics, March 22, 1923.

  “Dearest and Most Colossal Eggs”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “all the pools and even the Sound reek”: ibid.

  “It was an exquisite summer”: “How to Live on $36,000 a Year,” Afternoon of an Author, p. 93.

  “We drank always”: A Life in Letters, p. 191.

  a quip that Burton Rascoe repeated: Rascoe, A Bookman’s Daybook, p. 248.

  “Fitzgerald showed us some card tricks”: Tribune, July 15, 1923.

  “Ring is drinking himself”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  Burton Rascoe correctly guessed: Tribune, December 14, 1923.

  “as a creator of a cheap type of fiction”: New York Times, June 19, 1921.

  “Just one more great”: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbook.

  “Scott’s play went so badly”: Wilson, Letters, pp. 118–19.

  “I went
over there”: Van Vechten, The Splendid Drunken Twenties, p. 45.

  “There were many changing friends”: Milford, Zelda Fitzgerald, p. 103.

  “No detective story ever written”: New York Times, April 8, 1923.

  “inspired by a desire to make some money”: New York Times, May 31, 1923.

  “And if anybody had come to the door”: ibid.

  She would go on stage: New York Times, September 14, 1923.

  put the temptations of the New World behind them: “How to Live on Practically Nothing a Year,” Afternoon of an Author, pp. 100–16.

  “Horsey, Keep Your Tail Up”: PUL, Charles Scribner’s Sons Papers.

  sent a telegram . . . to Max Perkins: ibid.

  “nearly a scandal about Bunny Burgess”: A Life in Letters, p. 191.

  passenger list for the Minnewaska: New York Times, May 3, 1924.

  “found a good nurse”: PUL, Charles Scribner’s Sons Papers.

  “boarded the train for the Riviera”: “How to Live on Practically Nothing a Year,” Afternoon of an Author, p. 104.

  where vision seemed only a question: Save Me the Waltz, Collected Writings, p. 71.

  “the loveliest piece of earth”: A Life in Letters, p. 68.

  “I shall be obligated to snatch”: PUL, Charles Scribner’s Sons Papers.

  The villas they saw at Hyères: “Show Mr. and Mrs. F to—” Collected Writings, p. 421.

  In Save Me the Waltz: Save Me the Waltz, Collected Writings, p. 87.

  “protruded insistently from their white”: Save Me the Waltz, Collected Writings, pp. 80–82.

  “we warmed our sunburned backs”: “Show Mr. and Mrs. F to—” Collected Writings, p. 421.

  “It is twilight as I write this”: “How to Live on Practically Nothing a Year,” Afternoon of an Author, p. 116.

  “often leads to perversion”: New York Times, June 1, 1924.

  “several things, one of which”: Dear Scott / Dear Max, p. 120.

  “that girl who shot her mother”: A Life in Letters, pp. 140–41.

  “a particularly sordid and degraded”: “Jacob’s Ladder,” Short Stories, p. 350.

  “HALL–MILLS CASE RECALLED”: New York Times, June 25, 1924.

  “I am so anxious for people to see”: Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 139.

  “Everything would be perfect”: Milford, Zelda Fitzgerald, p. 107.

  an undated letter from Olive Burgess: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers.

  “Zelda swimming every day”: Fitzgerald, Ledger: A Facsimile, p. 178.

  “The table at Villa Marie”: Notebooks, p. 106.

  Olive would divorce Bunny Burgess: New York Times, December 10, 1926.

  “I’ve been unhappy but my work”: A Life in Letters, p. 80.

  “We’ve had a quiet summer”: ibid, p. 78.

  “Zelda and I are contemplating”: ibid, p. 80.

  “It is like nothing I’ve read before”: PUL, Charles Scribner’s Sons Papers.

  “That September , I knew”: Notebooks, p. 113.

  “Under separate cover I am sending”: A Life in Letters, p. 84.

  “I have now decided to stick to”: ibid, p. 85.

  were leaving St. Raphaël in two days: Matthew Bruccoli dates the letter c. November 7, but it is headed Sunday, saying they will leave Tuesday; the Sunday was November 9, 1924.

  “ill feeling with Zelda”: Fitzgerald, Ledger: A Facsimile p. 179.

  “an operation to enable [her]”: Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p. 245.

  “the strange incongruity of the words”: Dear Scott / Dear Max, p. 82.

  “In no other way could your irony”: PUL, Charles Scribner’s Sons Papers.

  “He was supposed to be a bootlegger”: ibid.

  “careful searching of the files”: Dear Scott / Dear Max, pp. 89–90.

  “I’m a bit (not very—not dangerously)”: ibid, pp. 88–90.

  “The Plaza Hotel scene”: Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, pp. 151.

  “clearing up that bum Plaza Hotel scene”: As Ever, Scott-Fitz, p. 75.

  “title is bad”: As Ever, Scott-Fitz, p. 78.

  “it may hurt the book’s popularity”: Dear Scott / Dear Max, pp. 88–90.

  “I am quite drunk I am told”: A Life in Letters, pp. 98–99.

  “represents about a year’s work”: Dreams of Youth, p. 498.

  “I read your article (very nice too) in Van”: PUL, John Peale Bishop Papers.

  “Like Gatsby I have only hope”: Dreams of Youth, p. 504.

  “dignified by an ardent pursuit”: John Keats, Selected Letters, Grant F. Scott and Hyder Edward Rollins, eds., Harvard University Press; Revised Edition (September 30, 2005), p. 100.

  “Premature success”: “Early Success,” The Crack-Up, p. 89.

  “This is very important. Be sure”: Dear Scott / Dear Max, p. 93.

  what he really meant was the leg of a compass: See Thomas Dilworth, “Donne’s Compass at the Death Scene.”

  “I look out at it”: Notebooks, p. 332.

  IX. FUNERAL AN INVENTION

  “Begin with an individual”: “The Rich Boy,” Short Stories, p. 317.

  “The book comes out today”: Dear Scott / Dear Max, p. 100.

  “Sales situation doubtful excellent reviews”: A Life in Letters, p. 106n.

  “It is too ripe for us”: Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p. 254.

  “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Latest A Dud”: Byrer, F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Critical Reputation, p. 195.

  “one woman, who could hardly have”: Fitzgerald, Introduction to The Great Gatsby, New York: Modern Library, 1934.

  “a strange mixture of fact and fancy”: Leonard Baird. Life, April 30, 1925, p. 33.

  “melodrama, a detective story”: Literary Digest International Book Review, May 3, 1925, pp. 426–27.

  Heywood Broun’s wife, Ruth Hale, wrote: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 18, 1925.

  “a snotty [and withal ungrammatical]”: A Life in Letters, p. 127.

  “most decidedly, not a great novel”: Galveston Daily News, April 26, 1925.

  “‘The Great Gatsby’,” certainly, is written”: Bryer, Critical Reception, p. 232.

  “a curious book, a mystical, glamorous story of today”: New York Times, April 19, 1925.

  “As for the drama of the accident”: In His Own Time, pp. 353–54.

  “Some day they’ll eat grass”: PUL, Charles Scribner’s Sons Papers.

  “mastered his talent and gone soaring”: Critical Assessments Vol. I, p. 179.

  “The Long Island [Fitzgerald] sets before us”: In His Own Time, p. 351.

  “Without making any invidious comparisons”: A Life in Letters, p. 109.

  “What has never been alive cannot very well”: Bryer, The Critical Reception, p. 202.

  “Burton Rascoe says The Great Gatsby is”: Dreams of Youth, p. 503. Nedra is a 1905 novel of love among the upper classes by George Barr McCutcheon. There is no evidence of a writer named Harold Nigrath, although a Harold MacGrath was a bestselling writer of romances such as The Princess Elopes.

  “little tribute is a result of our having snubbed”: A Life in Letters, p. 117.

  “has never been known to refuse an invitation”: Dreams of Youth, p. 204.

  “that cocksucker Rascoe”: Bruccoli, Scott and Ernest: The Authority of Failure and the Authority of Success, p. 62.

  “I give you my word of honor”: Rascoe, “Contemporary Reminiscences,” p. 66.

  “triumphs by technique rather than by theme”: ibid, p. 68.

  “It’s just four o’clock in the morning”: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbook.

  “Gatsby’s life seemed to have had”: Trimalchio, p. 137.

  “creating the co
ntemporary world”: Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p.

  “rather a bitter dose”: Wilson, Letters, p. 121.

  “My present quarrel with you is only this”: Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 164.

  “Gatsby was far from perfect in many ways”: A Life in Letters, p. 112.

  “We had a great trip together”: Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961. Carlos Baker, ed. New York: Scribner, 1981, p. 163.

  Hemingway told Ezra Pound: Scott Donaldson. Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship. New York: Overlook, 1999, p. 61.

  “Most people are dull, without distinction”: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers.

  “We went to Antibes to recuperate”: PUL, Zelda Fitzgerald Papers.

  “Let me tell you about the very rich”: “The Rich Boy,” Short Stories, p. 318.

  These are not the words of a man in thrall to riches: Ten years later, Hemingway would claim in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” that someone told Fitzgerald that the only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich have more money. In fact, someone told it to Hemingway: he had announced at a dinner with Max Perkins that he was getting to know the rich, and the sharp Irish critic Mary Colum informed Hemingway that the rich just have more money. Characteristically, Hemingway turned his own humiliation into an arrow to shoot down the competition.

  “sense of carnival and impending disaster”: PUL, Charles Scribner’s Sons Papers.

  “he suddenly realized the meaning of the word”: “Babylon Revisited,” Short Stories, p. 620.

  “the most glamorous place in the world”: Dreams of Youth, p. 100.

  “Now Ludlow, take it from an old souse”: Turnbull, Scott Fitzgerald, p. 168.

  “Is there any man present”: ibid.

  “Dear Adolph, Please let Mr. Fitzgerald”: PUL, F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers.

  “back in America—further apart than ever before”: A Life in Letters, p. 193.

  “The parties were bigger”: Fitzgerald, “My Lost City,” The Crack-Up, p. 30.

  “to increase his paper’s circulation”: The New Yorker, “A Mystery Revived,” August 7, 1926, p. 25.

  The trial lasted just under a month: John R. Brazil. “Murder Trials, Murder, and Twenties America.” American Quarterly, 33.2 (1981), pp. 163–84.

  “She’s a liar! Liar, liar, liar!”: New York Times, November 19, 1926.