Album Review: Easy as Pie, The Surfrajettes (2024)

This is such a great album cover. Easy as Pie, by the Surfrajettes, 2024.

The Surfrajettes are one of my favorite bands that I’ve discovered over the last couple of years. This Toronto-based quartet plays instrumental surf music with a modern flair, and they are fantastic in concert. Earlier this month, the Surfrajettes released their second full-length LP, Easy as Pie. Their debut LP Roller Fink was released in 2022, and I reviewed that album here. 

Easy as Pie is a fantastic album, showcasing the excellent interplay among the band members. Shermy Freeman and Nicole Damoff trade lead guitar duties, Sarah Butler plays bass, and Annie Lillis handles drums and percussion. Shermy and Nicole write the original songs for the band, and they do a great job crafting catchy instrumentals that are fun to listen to. There’s also enough complexity to their songs that they bear repeated listening—I’m always catching something I didn’t hear before. Easy as Pie features 7 new originals from Nicole and Shermy, and 5 cover versions.  

Most of the songs on Easy as Pie follow a food theme, which is a clever idea that is carried over into the art design and packaging of the album. The album cover shows the Surfrajettes dressed as waitresses in a diner, and the music video for the song “Easy as Pie” is also set in a diner. There’s a special insert in the album that is meant to mimic the look of a diner placemat—it features ads for diners and guitar makers, and it’s a very fun touch to the album design. (There’s also an ad for Shermy’s stitchery business.)  

“Easy as Pie” is a fast-paced, dynamic album opener, and it lets the listener know that you’re in a for a fun time. “Toasted Western,” named after a sandwich that is popular in Canada, but not very well-known in the United States, has a country feel, appropriate to the title. There’s a fun music video for “Toasted Western” that the group filmed on an iPhone in the middle of a cornfield while on tour. On “Clam Chowder” you can hear Annie rocking that surf beat, and there’s a lot of reverb and tremolo bar action on the guitars. Next is a very fun version of the Spice Girls song “Spice Up Your Life,” and the song is a perfect example of how the Surfrajettes are able to take a pop song, translate it to the surf guitar sound, and put their own fun spin on it. “Double Reverb” is one of my favorite songs on the album, and it’s a great showcase for the drumming of Annie Lillis, who is drumming up a storm on this tune, constantly pushing the song forward. Her drumming on this song is like a far-off rumble of thunder in the distance that occasionally breaks into a storm. “Chiffon Daydream” is a beautiful ballad, and it’s easy to imagine slow dancing to this song.  

Leading off side two of the album, “Instant Coffee” is another fast-paced rocker, and Annie’s drumming is superb, with tons of great fills. Also dig Sarah’s always excellent bass playing on this tune. “Word Salad” starts with a catchy guitar riff that is doubled before the drums and bass join in. It’s a great example of how the Surfrajettes are able to create interesting songs that are fun and varied in their sounds and textures. “Hot Doggin’” is a fun tune that calls up summer days at the beach. “Priss and Vinegar” has been a staple of the Surfrajettes’ live sets for a while, and in addition to being a great title, is a great example of Shermy and Nicole’s twin guitar work. One of the fun things about seeing the Surfrajettes in concert is watching how Shermy and Nicole trade off between lead and rhythm guitar. “Lickity Split” has a really fun guitar sound, with the main riff being playing very low before it’s echoed in a higher octave. The ringing guitars at about 50 seconds into the song are fantastic to listen to. The final song on the album is a fun version of the Nancy Sinatra song “Sugar Town,” a perfect tribute to a classic 1960’s artist. 

Easy as Pie is a fantastic showcase for the talents of the Surfrajettes, and it’s an engaging listen from start to finish. The LP is available in different “flavors” of colored vinyl, another fun touch. I’d highly recommend Easy as Pie, as it’s easy as pie to enjoy the sweet sounds of the Surfrajettes.  

Book Review: F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography, Niklas Salmose and David Rennie, Editors (2024)

The cover of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography, Niklas Salmose and David Rennie, editors, 2024. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

An unusual new biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald was published earlier this year. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography, edited by Niklas Salmose and David Rennie, splits Fitzgerald’s 44-year lifespan into two-year periods. Salmose and Rennie assembled an all-star roster of 23 Fitzgerald scholars to each write a chapter, with the twenty-third chapter covering 1940, the last year of Fitzgerald’s life. It’s a fascinating concept for a biography, and one that works surprisingly well. I wrote a review for the Ramsey County Historical Society, which you can find online here. This piece is a collection of leftover thoughts that I didn't have space for in the review.

The trickiest task falls to the scholars covering Fitzgerald’s earliest years, as there simply isn’t that much material about his very early life. What can you say about 8-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald? But the scholars do an excellent job connecting the patterns of Fitzgerald’s young life to his writings. In particular, Helen Turner, covering the years 1896 and 1897, paints an excellent picture of Fitzgerald’s relationship with his parents. Similarly, Martina Mastandrea does a nice job of covering 1898 and 1899, as the Fitzgerald family moved from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Buffalo, New York.  

Thinking about Fitzgerald’s life in two-year segments is an interesting task. I tend to think of his life in general patterns, but not in such discrete time segments. I didn’t realize until I was reading Jade Broughton Adams’ chapter how little work Fitzgerald did in 1926, when he only wrote two short stories, and was making little progress on his fourth novel. 

There are fascinating little tidbits throughout the book. I was moved by reading Fitzgerald’s reaction to the death of Joseph Conrad, one of his favorite authors. Author Gilbert Seldes was visiting Fitzgerald in France when one morning he found Scott looking off his balcony, towards the sea. Without turning around, Fitzgerald said “Conrad is dead.” (p.240-1) It’s fitting that Scott was gazing out upon a body of water contemplating Conrad’s writing, as Conrad wrote so often of the sea.  

Another fun anecdote is the French writer Andre Chamson’s memory of Fitzgerald showing off his many ties and handkerchiefs and urging the young writer to take one. Shades of Fitzgerald as Jay Gatsby, showing off his shirts for Daisy. (p.278)  

Scott Donaldson gives us the tidbit that Fitzgerald, not known for straying into politics, spoke at an anti-war rally in 1932, although he may have lost the sympathy of his audience when he addressed them as “fellow cranks.” (p.327)  

I was disappointed there was no mention of Fitzgerald’s 1939 break with Harold Ober, his longtime literary agent, when Ober finally refused to lend Fitzgerald any more money. The break was significant in that it ended a twenty-year professional relationship and friendship. But it didn’t have a huge effect on Fitzgerald professionally, as by that time he was only selling his short stories to Esquire magazine, and he was dealing with publisher Arnold Gingrich directly, bypassing Ober.  

F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography is a reminder of the fascinating life that F. Scott Fitzgerald led. Even though the biography comes in at around 400 pages, there is still so much to be said about his life. And that isn’t even mentioning his posthumous literary life, which has seen Fitzgerald lifted into the pantheon of great American authors, where he remains to this day. If you’re interested in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life, go read A Composite Biography, and you’re sure to learn something new about his life and work.  

Book Review: Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt (1975)

The original cover of Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt, 1975.

Natalie Babbitt’s 1975 young adult novel Tuck Everlasting is a fascinating look at life and death. It’s a book that I didn’t read growing up, but I must have heard the title, as it’s always stuck with me, for some reason. The fiftieth anniversary of the novel is coming up next year, and a new graphic novel adaptation is due out. When I found Tuck Everlasting in a Little Free Library recently, I took it as a sign that it was time to read it.  

Tuck Everlasting is the story of ten-year-old Winnie Foster, who lives in a small town called Treegap. Winnie’s parents and grandmother try their best to shelter her from the dangers of the outside world, and she spends most of her summer days within her fenced yard, longing to experience more of what’s on the other side.  

One day, Winnie wanders into the forest near her house. There she sees a handsome young man who is relaxing in the shade of a tree. He drinks from a small spring. Winnie starts talking to him and finds it curious that he does not want her to drink any water from the spring. When the young man’s mother and brother show up, they tell Winnie that they will have to take her with them.  

This strange family that has kidnapped Winnie are the Tucks, and it turns out that they drank water from this spring in the forest many years ago. Since that time, they have stopped aging and are immortal. They have tried to conceal the spring from anyone else, for fear that others would find it and exploit it.  

I won’t summarize the plot any further, for fear of spoiling this charming story. Tuck Everlasting brings up many philosophical questions: what would it mean to stop aging? What would it be like to be immortal? How would being immortal change the decisions that you made, and the way you lived?  

As a society and a culture, America tends to fear aging and death. Rather than face these parts of the life cycle head on, our culture just avoids them. I think one of the messages of Tuck Everlasting is to remind us to enjoy those special moments in life, as they are finite.  

Book Review: Save Me the Waltz, a novel by Zelda Fitzgerald (1932)

My paperback copy of Save Me the Waltz, by Zelda Fitzgerald. Originally published in 1932, this paperback is from 1968. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Zelda Fitzgerald’s writing was inevitably overshadowed during her own lifetime by the writing of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, but Zelda published several short stories of her own, and one novel in 1932, Save Me the Waltz.  

Save Me the Waltz tells the story of Alabama Beggs and her husband David Knight. The characters of Alabama and David are stand-ins for Zelda and Scott, and the novel closely parallels the Fitzgeralds’ married life. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing often drew from his own life experiences but Save Me the Waltz is nakedly autobiographical in a way that his writing seldom was. 

Zelda Fitzgerald’s writing style falls into the “you’ll either love it or hate it” category. Similes and metaphors collide and crash together, and there are times where the reader can barely hold on to what’s happening. Here’s an example: “A shooting star, ectoplasmic arrow, sped through the nebular hypothesis like a wanton hummingbird. From Venus to Mars to Neptune it trailed the ghost of comprehension, illuminating far horizons over the pale battlefields of reality.” (p.73) I can’t tell you what those two sentences mean. It’s surprising that Zelda never wrote poetry, because her writing style was quite poetic. Some of her more surreal flights of fancy, like the above passage, might have been more effective if set in a poem rather than in the framework of a novel.  

In Save Me the Waltz, Alabama and David, who is a painter, move to the south of France, where Alabama meets a handsome French aviator. In real life, Zelda and Scott moved to the south of France, where Zelda met Edouard Jozan, a handsome French aviator. Much ink has been spilled over whatever happened between Scott, Zelda, and Edouard Jozan during the summer of 1924. Fitzgerald biographer Scott Donaldson wrote an entire chapter in his book The Impossible Craft about how 14 different biographers, Donaldson included, treated the relationship between Zelda and Jozan. Was this merely a flirtation, or was it something more serious? Well, there are 14 different answers to that question. Donaldson points out some interesting differences: “A majority of the female biographers...tend to deny that the affair actually took place and assume that the crisis it generated was more or less fabricated by the Fitzgeralds. Most of the male biographers...follow the lead of Mizener and Turnbull in believing that Zelda and Josan’s relationship was indeed adulterous.” (p.175)  

Donaldson astutely writes of the differing accounts of the relationship, “It can safely be said that the single trait all biographers share is a certain arrogance as they undertake to understand how it must have been, say, for Zelda and Scott and Edouard a long time ago...This illustrates what has often been remarked: that every biography conceals within itself the autobiography of its author.” (p.187) 

Much of what biographers have theorized about Zelda and Jozan has come from Save Me the Waltz. Biographers often cite this passage: “He drew her body against him till she felt the blades of his bones carving her own. He was bronze and smelled of the sand and sun; she felt him naked underneath the starched linen. She didn’t think of David. She hoped he hadn’t seen; she didn’t care. She felt as if she would like to be kissing Jacques Chevre-Feuille on the top of the Arc de Triomphe.” (p.92) 

Zelda’s biographer Nancy Milford thinks that Alabama does not sleep with the French aviator, therefore Zelda did not sleep with Jozan. But Milford oddly chose to ignore the above passage in her biography. Is the above passage proof that Zelda had sex with Jozan? Not really, it’s from a work of fiction. Maybe Zelda just imagined “feeling him naked underneath the starched linen.” But it’s certainly a steamy passage.  

The French aviator eventually has to go away. He writes Alabama a farewell letter. Does Alabama read the letter? Nope. “Alabama could not read the letter. It was in French. She tore it in a hundred little pieces...” (p.101) This drove me nuts. If you were in love with someone, even if you knew it was doomed, even if you couldn’t read French, wouldn’t you try a little harder to read the farewell letter they sent you? Or maybe find a French friend who could translate the letter for you?  

In retaliation for whatever happened between Alabama and the French aviator, David has an affair with Gabrielle Gibbs, who is an actress playing a dancer. Gibbs seems to be a stand-in for the ballerina Isadora Duncan. I don’t think any biographer has claimed that Isadora Duncan had a fling with Scott, but they apparently flirted so much when they met that Zelda threw herself down a flight of stone steps. Miraculously, Zelda was unharmed. 

Save Me the Waltz made me wonder if the Fitzgerald’s acquaintance with Isadora Duncan was the spark that re-ignited Zelda’s passion for ballet? It’s after David’s affair with Gabrielle Gibbs that Alabama throws herself into the ballet. For me, the novel improved once Alabama took up the ballet, as it gave the book more narrative focus.  

As in Zelda’s real life, the ballet becomes an all-consuming obsession for Alabama. In the novel, Alabama takes a job dancing in Naples, away from her husband and daughter Bonnie. The tragedy of Save Me the Waltz is that just as Alabama seems to find some meaning in her life through the ballet, she loses everything else. Her relationship with David becomes more strained. For me, the saddest part of the novel was when Alabama is with Bonnie in Naples, and she can’t relate to her daughter at all—the only thing she can think about is the ballet. Alabama has become a shell of a person. If this is any indication of what Zelda was actually like in 1929, it’s easy to see that she was headed towards a mental breakdown, which occurred in April of 1930.  

What is one to make of Save Me the Waltz? Zelda’s unorthodox writing style makes it a hard book to get into. But worse than that, Zelda has somehow made the story of Scott and Zelda dull. Alabama is a blank, a cipher that the reader has little access to, and David is an unappealing narcissist. 

Even Nancy Milford has trouble defending the novel on artistic grounds: “She has trouble sustaining a longer narrative and Save Me the Waltz is not an easy book to read.” (p.223) And Milford highlights the key flaw of the novel: “Perhaps that is the larger problem presented by this novel—that because it is so deeply autobiographical, the transmutation of reality into art is incomplete.” (p.224) Save Me the Waltz feels like a catalogue of events that happen, rather than a novel that has been shaped towards a definite end.  

All that being said, it’s a remarkable achievement for Zelda Fitzgerald that Save Me the Waltz was written at all. After her mental breakdown in April of 1930, Zelda spent 15 months in Swiss sanitariums, then returned home to Montgomery, Alabama. Her father died two months later. In February 1932, Zelda had her second mental breakdown. She finished the first draft of the novel very quickly, just a month later.  

And there are passages in Save Me the Waltz of clear writing and sharp dialogue, as when David says, “People are like almanacs, Bonnie—you never can find the information you’re looking for, but the casual reading is well worth the trouble.” (p.181) That’s just brilliant.  

After initially being rather perturbed that his wife had written a novel and sent it to his editor Maxwell Perkins without telling him, Scott had praise for Save Me the Waltz, writing to Perkins in May 1932, “It is a good novel now, perhaps a very good novel—I am too close to it to tell. It has the faults & virtues of a first novel. It is more the expression of a powerful personality, like Look Homeward, Angel than the work of a finished artist like Ernest Hemmingway. It should interest the many thousands interested in dancing. It is about something & absolutely new, & should sell.” (Dear Scott/Dear Max, p.176) Yes, Fitzgerald hardly ever spelled Hemingway’s last name correctly. And Scott was quite right to compare Save Me the Waltz to Thomas Wolfe’s debut novel, Look Homeward, Angel, as both novels have the same quality of being nakedly autobiographical.  

In the same letter, Scott, knowing that Hemingway had a book in the works, had some advice for Perkins: “Ernest told me once he would ‘never publish a book in the same season with me,’ meaning it would lead to ill-feeling. I advise you, if he is in New York, (and always granting you like Zelda’s book) do not praise it, or even talk about it to him!...There is no possible conflict between the books but there has always been a subtle struggle between Ernest & Zelda & any opposition might have curiously grave consequences—curious, that is, to un-jealous men like you and me.” (p.176) This letter just makes me laugh, thinking about poor Scott, trying to keep both his friend and his wife happy, wanting to avoid the “curiously grave consequences.” As it happened, Save Me the Waltz was released just two weeks after Hemingway’s non-fiction book about bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon.  

Save Me the Waltz was not a sales success. The first printing was roughly 3,000 copies, and slightly fewer than half of them were sold: 1,392, according to Nancy Milford’s biography. (p.264) The novel was out of print for many years, before finally being reissued in 1967. Save Me the Waltz remains essential reading for anyone interested in the life stories of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald.