Master the 40: The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
In 1929 F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Ernest Hemingway that because his short stories now earned $4000 a pop he was "an old whore" who had "mastered the 40 positions" when "in her youth one was enough." But were the upwards of 180 stories he cranked out when not writing The Great Gatsby really the work of a literary prostitute selling out his talent for a fast buck? Kirk Curnutt and Robert Trogdon don't think so. Each episode they draw a random title from a hat and explore its place in Fitzgerald's career, in the magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post or Esquire where it may have appeared, and in the overall development of the American short story. Along the way, they talk literary politics, history, and gossip from the 1920s and 1930s, rediscovering the lively personalities and rivalries that tried to define the porous boundaries between commercial and artistic fiction, between the popular and the avant-garde, between the forgotten and the canonized.
Master the 40: The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gretchen's Forty Winks
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In this episode we nibble on a Fitzgerald comedy so light it could be meringue. Granted, the storyline of a harried husband who slips his wife a Mickey Finn of a sleeping potion so he can finish an important advertising campaign is probably today more of a wake-up call than the high-concept rib-tickler audiences in 1924 read it as. We explore how "Gretchen's Forty Winks" fit into the March 15 issue of the Saturday Evening Post where it appeared alongside forgotten fiction with titles like "Bumbums in Boxes." Such fluffy disposable short stories, we suggest, are akin to the innocuous sitcoms of our youth. We also reveal how the story parodies the 1920s' work/life balance movement, with antagonist George Tompkins embodying some of the sillier self-fulfillment initiatives of the times while protagonist Roger Halsey preaches a Calvin Coolidge-like gospel of productivity. We also delve into how Gretchen's flirtation with George reflects Fitzgerald's own anxieties about his wife's friendships with other men. Finally we trace the curious afterlife the story enjoyed in storytelling clubs and amateur theatricals. While no one will mistake the Halsey family's adventures in rapid-eye movement for great art, Fitzgerald did choose it to close his third story collection, All the Sad Young Men, and it received surprisingly high marks from reviewers. At the end of the day "Gretchen's Forty Winks," we insist, is far from a snooze---instead, it's a real sleeper!