A Fake F. Scott. . .

"Fitzgerald's words, now often featuring a GIF of a beating heart or a ray of sunshine over them, feel like a letter of hope sent a hundred years into the future. His dark humour as bars close and he stocks up on, 'red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, white wine, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy', is the amusement we all need.

"The problem is that it isn't written by Fitzgerald, nor was it penned in 1920. The parody letter in fact first appeared a week ago on the humour website McSweeney's, written by Nick Farriella."

~~ from Olivia Ovenden at Esquire

West of Sunset

"The war dwarfed their problems. What was a broken molar when the Germans were pushing through the Ardennes? [F. Scott Fitzgerald] went to the dentist and Belgium fell. Luxembourg, the Netherlands. He thought of Gerald and Sara's villa, and Sheilah's brother in London. Ernest [Hemingway] was probably there somewhere, filing hot copy.

"They were on their way to the World's Fair in San Francisco when the radio broadcast the evacuation of Dunkirk. It was a victory, saving the British army to fight again, but there was nothing to stop the Germans from taking Paris. [Fitzgerald] was there every day, on the Quai du Louvre with Scottie, as Cary Grant in the Ritz bar. Selfishly, he felt it was his city, his past they were taking from him--the gray, rainy streets and scabby sycamores and hennaed doyennes walking their little dogs in the Jardin des Plantes. He wondered if he would feel the same if the Japanese bombed Los Angeles."

~~ from West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan

no matter what Scott did

“When I had finished the book I knew that no matter what Scott did, nor how he behaved, I must know it was like a sickness and be of any help I could to him and try to be a good friend. He had many good, good friends, more than anyone I knew. But I enlisted as one more, whether I could be of any use to him or not. If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one. I did not know Zelda yet, and so I did not know the terrible odds that were against him. But we were to find them out soon enough.”

~~ from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway