Book Review: Business is Good: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Professional Writer, by James L.W. West III (2023)

Business is Good: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Professional Writer, by James L.W. West III, 2023. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III

F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III’s most recent book is Business is Good: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Professional Writer. Released in March of 2023, the book collects West’s recent essays about different aspects of Fitzgerald’s writing. For Fitzgerald scholars, it’s a must read, as West has deep insights into Fitzgerald’s work.  

One of the essays examines a 1924 letter that Fitzgerald wrote to Moran Tudury, an author who wrote short stories for pulp magazines. In the letter, Fitzgerald wrote of his 1922 novel The Beautiful and Damned “it was a false lead. Its attempted naturalism was a concession to Mencken—perhaps unconscious. The business of creating illusion is much more to my taste and my talent.” Fitzgerald writes that “my new novel...is a new thinking out of the idea of illusion.” (p.18) This is of special interest because the novel Fitzgerald is referencing will become The Great Gatsby.  

West writes of Fitzgerald, “one of his great strengths as an artist was the internal tension in his work between romantic and naturalistic elements, neither of which ever came fully to dominate his thinking or writing.” (p.20) I think West is absolutely correct, Fitzgerald’s work is a fascinating mix of naturalism and romanticism, and that’s part of what makes his work so beautiful.  

One of the most fascinating chapters was about the Broadway play of The Great Gatsby, which opened in 1926. The script, by Owen Davis, took considerable liberty with Fitzgerald’s story. Davis's adaptation is chronological, so the play opens in Louisville in 1917, and Gatsby’s background, which is revealed late in the novel, is told to the audience at the beginning of the play. West details the plot of the play, which has some significant differences from the novel. West also reveals a great line that Davis added, as Tom Buchanan says to Gatsby during their confrontation, “You’re out of your class, old sport! You can’t speak her language.” (p.54)  

In one chapter, West examines Fitzgerald’s ledger, a large book where Fitzgerald kept track of his writings and offered monthly summaries of his life. West writes: “Through 1932 Fitzgerald’s attitude is confident and forward-looking. After that, however, his mood becomes increasingly elegiac, melancholy, and regretful...As time goes on he seems less interested in himself and, indeed, increasingly less interested in life.” (p.84) As depressing as this conclusion is, it’s hard to argue with it. Fitzgerald certainly had many reasons to be melancholy after 1932, as both his personal and professional lives were filled with difficulty.  

There’s a fascinating chapter on Fitzgerald’s 1927 short story “Jacob’s Ladder,” and how the original publication of the story in The Saturday Evening Post did not perfectly match Fitzgerald’s intentions for the story. In the last three words of the story, an error crept in, and Fitzgerald’s “vast throbbing darkness” became “fast-throbbing darkness” when the story was published in the Post.  

West reveals to us how fastidious a good editor needs to be, as he chronicles the many options available to someone wanting to edit The Great Gatsby. Now that Gatsby is in the public domain, anyone can edit it. So, should Daisy and Tom’s daughter remain “three years old,” as Daisy tells us she is? From the chronology of the novel, their daughter is actually two years and three months old. West tells us “When Fitzgerald originally drafted this scene he had a different chronology in mind for the novel.” (p.136) But Fitzgerald forgot to change the daughter’s age. So, what is the editor to do? Of course, it’s a minor point, but if we take Daisy at her word, that would mean that she was pregnant when she married Tom, which is probably not the implication that Fitzgerald wanted to make. Perhaps Daisy’s error in stating her daughter’s age is an indication of her light-headedness. This may not have been Fitzgerald’s intention, but it certainly fits with her character.  

My only quibble with West’s book is in the first chapter, he writes that in the summer of 1917, Fitzgerald “traveled to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, thirty miles to the south of St. Paul, and took the examination for a commission.” (p.11) As a Saint Paulite, I can tell you that Fort Snelling is not thirty miles south of Saint Paul—it’s right next to Saint Paul, and only about seven miles from where Fitzgerald was living in Saint Paul in 1917. But that’s a small quibble compared to the many pleasures that West’s book brings.  

Business is Good is ample proof that there is still more for us to learn about the life and career of F. Scott Fitzgerald.