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| The Pocket Essential F. Scott Fitzgerald, by Richard Shephard (2005) on the Fitzgerald shelf. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor) |
Published in 2005, The
Pocket Essential F. Scott Fitzgerald, written by Richard Shephard, is meant
to be a brief introduction to the author and his work. Just over 150 pages, the
book does a good job of providing the reader with an overview of Fitzgerald’s
life and work. I’d recommend it for someone who wanted to know more about
Fitzgerald, but didn’t want to tackle one of the biographies. If you’re not
that familiar with Fitzgerald’s life and work, The Pocket Essential could give you a next step to take.
Stylistically, Shephard’s run-on sentences are sometimes a
challenge to decipher. Whoever edited the book should have caught some of these
doozies. It’s obvious from the text that Shephard is an admirer of Fitzgerald
scholar and biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli. That’s perfectly fine, as Bruccoli
was the leading Fitzgerald scholar, but sometimes Shephard’s prose is a little
too close. Here’s Shephard writing about Fitzgerald’s 1935 short story
collection:
“Taps at Reveille, which
was published in March 1935, and received good reviews, but sold relatively
poorly, largely because spending $2.50 on a volume of stories was something of
an indulgence during the Depression.” (p.94)
Here’s Bruccoli on the same subject:
“As was always the case with Fitzgerald’s story volumes, the
reviews were mainly favorable; but a $2.50 book of stories was a luxury item in
1935, and the collection was not reprinted.” (Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, p.391)
My one other quibble with The Pocket Essential F. Scott Fitzgerald is that it lacks footnotes
or endnotes, so it’s hard to tell exactly where the quotes that Shephard is
using are coming from. It’s always a pet peeve of mine when non-fiction books
don’t use footnotes or endnotes.
Despite those reservations, I would recommend The Pocket Essential F. Scott Fitzgerald
for those looking to learn more about this fascinating author.
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