Weekend Writing: Celebrating F. Scott Fitzgerald

Let's cut to the chase right now: I love F. Scott Fitzgerald, so I'm very excited to be celebrating his birthday! In fact, I refer to him as my literary boyfriend. Fitzgerald is best known for writing the "great American novel," The Great Gatsby. But there was so much more to him than that one novel.

F. Scott Fitzgerald as a young boy
(photo/Pinterest).

Born on September 24, 1896, in Saint Paul, Minnesota as Francis Scott Fitzgerald (he was related to Francis Scott Key, who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner"), Scott would be known professionally as F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was also named after his deceased older sister, Louise Scott, one of two sisters who died before his birth.

Fitzgerald spent the first decade of his childhood primarily in Buffalo, New York, as well as West Virginia, and Rochester, New York--traveling wherever his father found work as a furniture salesman and then his work for Procter & Gamble. Fitzgerald was enrolled in high-class Catholic schools, where he would receive superb educational training.

In 1908, however, his father was fired from Procter & Gamble, and the family returned back home to Saint Paul, Minnesota. At this time (12 years old), Fitzgerald began writing and published his first piece--a detective story published in his school newspaper.

When he turned 15, Fitzgerald's parents sent him to the Newman School in New Jersey, a Catholic prep school designed to train young men for college. This is where he met Father Sigourney Fay, who encouraged Fitzgerald to pursue a literary career. I guess we could say the rest is history!

F. Scott Fitzgerald in college (photo/IMDb).

After his prep school graduation, Fitzgerald stayed in New Jersey to study at Princeton University. He wrote for the school newspaper and literary societies. During college, Fitzgerald began writing novels and sent them to publishers, but he only received rejections. I bet those publishers probably later kicked themselves for rejecting F. Scott Fitzgerald!

During his college years at Princeton, Fitzgerald met Chicago socialite, Ginevra King. He was infatuated with her and she was his first "real" love. King became the inspiration for Fitzgerald's most famous female literary characters--Isabelle Borge in his 1920 novel, This Side of Paradise, and Daisy Buchanan in his 1925 classic, The Great Gatsby, as well as characters in many other short stories and novels.

Here's an interesting (and slightly funny) story: Fitzgerald only cared about writing in college. He neglected his academic studies and he was placed on academic probation. In 1917, Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton to enlist in the United States Army during World War I. Before he would leave for the war, he frantically wrote a novel, The Romantic Egotist, and sent it to publishers because he was scared he wouldn't make it back home from the war and there wouldn't be a literary work to remember him by. Honestly, that story just makes me love Fitzgerald even more...

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre (photo/Bio.com).

But, alas, the war ended before Fitzgerald even was deployed. He probably sighed with a relief, but his experience as an Army man led him to one great life event--meeting Zelda Sayre. When he was stationed as second lieutenant in the infantry in Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald met Southern Belle Zelda Sayre at a country club event.

To say he was smitten would probably be an understatement. He fell for her and he fell hard. Fitzgerald was able to write a great love story, but he was in the middle of his own tale.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise"
(photo/OverDrive).

But Zelda wasn't going to marry just anybody. Fitzgerald had to prove that he could support her as a writer. After all, she was the daughter of Alabama Supreme Court justice Anthony D. Sayre, so Zelda was accustomed to a high-class, wealthy lifestyle. What could Fitzgerald offer her, as an unpublished, struggling writer?

That's when Fitzgerald returned home to his parents in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to seriously revise his novel-in-progress. He worked on it night and day until it was ready to send out to publishers. Fitzgerald worked harder than he ever had before in his life. It worked out for him because the novel was accepted for publication, becoming This Side of Paradise, a mostly autobiographical novel about Fitzgerald's experience as a student at Princeton University.

The novel became a success, selling 41, 075 copies its first year, and it convinced Zelda to marry Fitzgerald. They were married in a Catholic ceremony a week after its publication, on April 3, 1920. The couple had one daughter, Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald, born on October 26, 1921.

The Fitzgerald family (photo/HKfamily5).

Fitzgerald's "The Beautiful and the Damned"
(photo/Amazon.com).

Fitzgerald's adult years focused on his writing. He proceeded to write many novels, including The Beautiful and the Damned (in 1922), The Great Gatsby (in 1925), Tender is the Night (in 1934), and The Love of the Last Tycoon (unfinished). He also wrote several short stories, including "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," and a collection of essays about the Jazz Age, regarding his time spent in Paris with other authors and artists, including Fitzgerald's friend and sometimes rival, Ernest Hemingway.

Fitzgerald's writing career declined in the 1930s, mostly from financial debt, but also from his distraction with Zelda, who began experiencing schizophrenic episodes in 1930. Zelda's mental depression and anxiety added stress to Fitzgerald's life, as he split his time between carrying for his hospitalized wife and writing. It was also during this time when Fitzgerald became an alcoholic, perhaps another coping mechanism from the stress.

His alcoholism would be his ultimate downfall. He had a heart attack on December 21, 1940, while he was in Hollywood, California, working as a "Hollywood hack." He was only 44 years old, and at the time of his death, he thought he was a failure. He wasn't the successful writer he had hoped. Isn't that sad? If he only knew how he is regarded now in the literary society...

F. Scott Fitzgerald (photo/PBS)

Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" (Wikipedia).

Now, you're probably wondering why I haven't really mentioned The Great Gatsby in great detail in Fitzgerald's biography. That's because Fitzgerald didn't know his novel was a success. That's right; the "great American novel" didn't gain national fame until the 1950s and '60s, long after Fitzgerald's death. You know how they say an artist becomes famous after their death? Well, that's exactly what happened to Fitzgerald. Yes, people knew who he was, but he wasn't a "successful" writer until the 1950s when The Great Gatsby achieved its high status as one of the best novels ever written.

Today, Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the best authors ever to exist. Yes, he had flaws, as we all do, but I will agree with that statement. He is one of the best authors, simply because his novel is still read and beloved over 90 years after its initial publication. Fitzgerald wrote about romance (Daisy and Gatsby, for example), societal critiques (This Side of Paradise and Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby), and he helped define the 1920s. When we think of the 1920s, we often think of jazz music and flapper dresses--because of what we have read in Fitzgerald's novels.

That's a pretty good writer right there...At least to me. I will always love F. Scott Fitzgerald, my literary boyfriend. And I know many others feel the same way.

And hopefully they always will.

Let's celebrate him today, and many other days.

-KJL-