Book Review: Scott Fitzgerald, a Biography by Andrew Turnbull (1962)

The original dust jacket of Andrew Turnbull's biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1962. 

In 1932, F. Scott Fitzgerald rented a house from the Turnbull family. Located in Towson, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore, “La Paix” was a beautiful, sprawling old Victorian home. Fitzgerald lived there for 18 months with his wife Zelda and their daughter Scottie. The Turnbulls lived in a newer house on their sprawling property, where they raised their three children: two daughters, Frances and Eleanor, and an 11-year-old son, Andrew.  

Andrew Turnbull was fascinated by Fitzgerald, who took a paternal interest in the boy. Fitzgerald played tennis, tossed footballs, and shot .22 rifles with Andrew. He also encouraged Andrew’s interest in words, writing him letters filled with obscure words that would send Andrew to the dictionary. Andrew attended Princeton, as did Fitzgerald. Andrew was a better student, as he actually graduated from Princeton, then earned a master’s and doctorate from Harvard in European history. Turnbull wrote the second biography of Fitzgerald. Titled simply Scott Fitzgerald, it was published in 1962. The following year, Turnbull edited the first collection of Fitzgerald’s letters.  

One of my favorite descriptions of Fitzgerald was written by Andrew Turnbull: “There was always something of the magician in Fitzgerald. He was the inventor, the creator, the tireless impresario who brightened our days and made other adult company seem dull and profitless. It wasn’t so much any particular skill of his as a quality of caring, of believing, of pouring his whole soul and imagination into whatever he did with us.” (p.231) I just love this passage, and it makes Fitzgerald come to life. You can imagine his sparkling wit enlivening Great Neck, the French Riviera, Saint Paul, Baltimore, and all the other places he lived.  

Turnbull understood Fitzgerald’s complicated personality, and his admiration for Fitzgerald comes across strongly in the text. But his book is no mere hagiography of Fitzgerald. Turnbull interviewed many people who knew Fitzgerald, and there are numerous accounts of his behavior, both good and bad.  

Fitzgerald exhibited a strong personal charisma, and Turnbull wrote of him: “Fitzgerald focused on you—even riveted on you—and if there was one thing you were sure of, it was that whatever you happened to be talking about was the most important matter in the world. A further seduction was his smile—quick, tight, and very appealing. It was not so much a smile as a flash of confidence in you and your mortal possibilities.” (p.226-7) There was more than a touch of Jay Gatsby in Scott Fitzgerald.  

Turnbull masterfully chronicles Fitzgerald’s life, from the glamour and fame of the 1920’s to the crash of the 1930’s, and his final attempt to remake himself in Hollywood. Brad Hayden wrote of Turnbull in the Dictionary of Literary Biography: “His speculations concerning Fitzgerald are filled with poetic insight and fidelity to the romantic spirit of his subject.” I read this quote grateful that someone summed up the book so well, and wishing that I had come up with such an elegant sentence.  

Turnbull wrote a beautiful summation of the eighteen months when Fitzgerald lived at La Paix. It’s one of my favorite passages in the book. “My mother was grateful she knew Fitzgerald when she did, for he must have been more impressive then than at almost any other time—because more tragic, and therefore more profound...My mother became for a brief season a listener to and therefore a sharer of his thoughts, and they blotted out the surface lights and carried her, as the poetry of his books has carried others, down into the depths. And not the depths of weakness and illness alone. They were there, but also the angels.” (p.248)  

After editing the collection of Fitzgerald’s letters, Turnbull also edited the 1965 volume Letters to His Daughter, which collected his letters to Scottie. Turnbull also wrote an acclaimed biography of Fitzgerald’s contemporary, and fellow Scribner’s author Thomas Wolfe, published in 1967. I’m lucky enough to have a signed copy of Turnbull’s Wolfe biography.  

In addition to his own memories of Fitzgerald, Turnbull interviewed and corresponded with many people who knew Fitzgerald. In “A Note on Method and Sources” at the end of the book, the list of people Turnbull talked to about Fitzgerald is six pages long. It’s a great loss for Fitzgerald and Wolfe studies that Turnbull’s papers do not survive, as “Turnbull’s files were destroyed when his widow left her house in Cambridge, Massachusetts.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Remembered, p.x) 

I knew that Andrew Turnbull died young, at age 48 in 1970, but it wasn’t until recently that I learned he committed suicide. I’m always saddened by any mention of suicide, and it’s hard for me to say exactly why I feel such sadness at the passing of someone I never met, someone who died 11 years before I was born. Part of the sadness is that I’ve always loved the connection that Fitzgerald had with Andrew Turnbull—how his friendship with this boy turned into a literary conversation, with Turnbull becoming his biographer, and editing the first collection of Fitzgerald’s letters. I’ve used the quote about Fitzgerald being “the inventor, the creator” numerous times on my Fitzgerald walking tours. I don’t know that the quote ever evoked in my audiences the same warm feeling I always had upon reading it, but I loved sharing it with people. I’ve moved away from reading direct quotes on my tours, unless I’m quoting from Fitzgerald himself. But when I talk about Fitzgerald’s personality, I always paraphrase what Turnbull wrote about how “Fitzgerald focused on you—even riveted on you— and if there was one thing you were sure of, it was that whatever you happened to be talking about was the most important matter in the world.” In that tiny way, I know my words are paying a little tribute to Andrew Turnbull’s work in researching and writing such a finely woven portrait of a talented writer who also happened to be his friend.  

"The Four Lost Men," a short story by Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Wolfe is best known for his long, autobiographical novels, but he also wrote many short stories. Wolfe often later incorporated material from his short stories into his novels. The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, edited by Francis E. Skipp and published in 1987, collects all 58 of Wolfe’s short stories.  

I recently read Wolfe’s 1934 short story “The Four Lost Men.” In the story, Wolfe recalls when he was sixteen years old, and the United States was about to enter World War I in 1917. The story becomes a jumping off point for an extended flight of fancy about Presidents James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and Rutherford B. Hayes: the four lost men. These four U.S. Presidents have become more lost to the mists of time than they were in Wolfe’s boyhood. Even as a devotee of American history, I can’t tell you very much about these four men. 

In the story, the narrator’s father goes on a monologue about American history, mentioning the different presidents, and when he mentions these four men together, that sets the narrator off on a journey. He imagines what their Civil War service was like—each of the four became a general during the war.  

Wolfe writes: “Had Garfield, Arthur, Harrison and Hayes been young? Or had they been born with flowing whiskers, sideburns, and wing-collars, speaking gravely from the cradle of their mother’s arms the noble vacant sonorities of far-seeing statesmanship?” (p.113) I love those sentences, it’s impossible for me to think of men from that era as having ever been young. But of course, they must have been.  

Wolfe goes on to query: “Did they not, as we, when young, prowl softly up and down past brothels in the dark hours of the night, seeing the gas lamps flare and flutter on the corner, falling with livid light upon the corners of old cobbled streets of brownstone houses?” (p.113) Wolfe paints such a vivid picture of this scene—we can easily imagine young Chester A. Arthur pacing up and down the street, steeling his nerve to enter the dimly lit brothel, with faded purple fabric covering the walls, and in a trembling voice ask for Louisa, the short, dark-haired girl that sets his soul aflame. Or we can imagine young James A. Garfield, walking past the Italian restaurant again and again, getting up the tense courage to enter and order an entire lasagna, the better to satisfy his craving for this rare ethnic dish. Once seated, he gobbles the whole pan, grabbing the lasagna with his hands, disdaining silverware, barely pausing before his ravenous hunger is satiated. Upon finishing the lasagna, Garfield lets out a wail that seems to come from some animal instinct deep within his soul. Oh, wait, I’m thinking of another Garfield.  

One of my favorite sentences in the story is this one: “Had they not, as we, then turned their eyes up and seen the huge starred visage of the night, the immense and lilac darkness of America in April?” (p.114) I love the phrase “lilac darkness,” it’s just so beautiful and evocative of the springtime.  

F. Scott Fitzgerald referenced the story in a letter to Wolfe. Wolfe had written to Fitzgerald, praising his new novel Tender Is the Night, and Fitzgerald addressed his reply to Wolfe, “Dear Arthur, Garfield, Harrison, and Hayes.” He signed the letter “F. Scott Fitzgerald and Arthur, Garfield, Harrison and Hayes,” a fun example of Fitzgerald’s playfulness, which was often expressed in his letters. 

“The Four Lost Men” was originally published in Scribner’s magazine in February, 1934. That same issue of the magazine also featured the second installment of Tender Is the Night, which was serialized in Scribner’s before being published in book form in April. Fitzgerald wrote to a friend, asking “did you notice that in the second issue of Scribner’s that really great story by Tom Wolfe,” which was “The Four Lost Men.” (Correspondence of FSF, p.323) 

Fitzgerald also expressed his enthusiasm for “The Four Lost Men” in a letter to Maxwell Perkins, who edited Fitzgerald and Wolfe—and Ernest Hemingway! Fitzgerald wrote: “I like ‘Only the Dead’ {Only the Dead Know Brooklyn, another Wolfe short story} and ‘Arthur, Garfield, etc.’ {The Four Lost Men} right up with the tops.” (Letters of FSF, p.316) Obviously, the story made an impression on Fitzgerald.  

Like so much of Wolfe’s writing “The Four Lost Men” becomes poetry, an incantation, an invocation of the spirits of the four lost men. A meditation on the very nature of America, with the four presidents finding four women to represent the four regions of the country, North, South, East, and West. There’s a wry humor in imagining these colorless men as passionate, vibrant beings with rich and complicated inner lives. The story is an excellent example of Wolfe’s skill as a writer, his ability to paint a rich and vibrant portrait from the most unlikely of sources.  

Book Review: The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe, edited by C. Hugh Holman (1961)

My copy of The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe, 1961. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Thomas Wolfe is best known for his four long novels, but he also published many short stories and several short novels during his brief career. The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe, edited by C. Hugh Holman, and published in 1961, shines more light on these neglected pieces of writing.  

Five short novels, originally published in magazines, are included in the book: A Portrait of Bascom Hawke, The Web of Earth, No Door, “I Have a Thing to Tell You,” and The Party at Jack’s. Things get a little confusing because Wolfe incorporated the material from the first three short novels into his second novel Of Time and the River. After Wolfe’s death in 1938, his editor Edward C. Aswell incorporated the material from the last two short novels into the 1940 novel You Can’t Go Home Again. Holman does the reader a service by reprinting these short novels as they appeared in magazines during the 1930’s, showing us how readers at the time would have encountered these texts. Part of Holman’s purpose was to demonstrate to the reader how Wolfe edited and shaped his writing, and that Wolfe was capable of writing fiction outside of the context of his long, autobiographical novels.  

Wolfe’s skill at creating shorter works of fiction is evident from these five short novels. The Web of Earth is especially impressive, as Wolfe channels the voice of his mother, Julia Wolfe, and the story unspools largely as a monologue. It’s a masterful performance, and shows Wolfe’s control of his material, as the old woman moves backwards and forwards in time as she embarks on diversions from her main narrative. The way Wolfe captures her speech patterns is fantastic. 

No Door is a beautiful and sad portrait of loneliness and isolation, as Wolfe takes the reader through several different Octobers in his life, and explores his yearning for human connection. Wolfe is searching for the door—the escape, the connection to others—but he can’t find it. 

There’s a wonderful paragraph describing New York City at the beginning of No Door that is a fantastic example of Wolfe’s style: 

“Evening is coming fast, and the tall frosted glasses in your hands make a thin but pleasant tinkling, and the great city is blazing there in your vision in its terrific frontal sweep and curtain of star-flung towers, now sown with the diamond pollen of a million lights, and the sun has set behind them, and the red light of fading day is painted upon the river—and you see the boats, the tugs, the barges passing, and the winglike swoop of bridges with exultant joy—and night has come, and there are ships there—there are ships—and a wild intolerable longing in you that you cannot utter.” (p.160)  

Wolfe’s exuberant prose paints such a vivid picture of the city for the reader. Another one of my favorite passages in No Door is one in which Wolfe describes working men eating: 

“They ate with bestial concentration, grained to the teeth with coarse spicy meat, coating their sandwiched hamburgers with the liberal unction of the thick tomato ketchup, and rending with hard blackened fingers soft yielding slabs of fragrant baker’s bread.” (p.224)  

I love the phrase “liberal unction of the thick tomato ketchup,” it’s just such a wonderful and unlikely combination.  

A Portrait of Bascome Hawke isn’t really about loneliness, but it has an interesting quote related to it. Wolfe writes of the title character, “Like all of us he had no home.” (p.22) Much of Wolfe’s writing is about people searching for home, looking for human connections. 

Although Wolfe was from North Carolina, he showed in this passage that he understood spring in the north: “It was one of the first days of spring: the spring had come late, with a magical northern suddenness. It seemed to have burst out of the earth overnight, the air was lyrical and sang with it.” (p.49) I’ve definitely experienced days like that.  

“I Have a Thing to Tell You” is a fascinating story. Wolfe had visited Germany several times in the 1920’s and 1930’s, and he felt a deep love and admiration for the country. When Of Time and the River was published in a German translation in 1935, Wolfe became a literary celebrity in Germany. Wolfe visited Germany again during the summer of 1936, and this visit finally soured him on the Nazi government. Wolfe was no fascist, but like other Western visitors to Germany between 1933 and 1938, he saw what Nazi propaganda intended for him to see—that things in Germany were looking up. In 1936, Wolfe attended a reception for Charles Lindbergh in Berlin, and I wish I knew what these two men thought of each other. The events detailed in “I Have a Thing to Tell You” happened to Wolfe—he was riding a train from Berlin to Paris, and one of the passengers in his compartment was a Jew who was trying to get out of Germany. When the train stopped at the Belgian border, the man was detained by the Germans, who found that he was trying to smuggle money out of Germany. At that time, only 10 Marks could be taken out of Germany—Wolfe had to spend all of his German royalties before he left the country. Wolfe felt a sense of helpless indignation and rage at the plight of this Jewish man, and he realized the cold brutality of the Nazi government. In the story as the Jewish man is being taken off the train, Wolfe wrote: “All of a sudden, without knowing why, I felt myself trembling with a murderous and incomprehensible anger...I felt impotent, shackled, unable to stir against the walls of an obscene but unshakable authority.” (p.270)  

Wolfe knew that if he published this story, he would be persona non grata in Germany—he would be shutting the door on a place where he was celebrated. To Wolfe’s credit, he published “I Have a Thing to Tell You,” because he knew it was the right thing to do. It is a powerful story and has a strong narrative drive. 

In the story, Wolfe perfectly describes receiving a wake-up call from the front desk of the hotel: “I stirred, then roused sharply, from that fitful and uneasy sleep which a man experiences when he has gone to bed late knowing he has got to get up early.” (p.236)  

Wolfe has his German publisher acerbically describe literary fame: “But then, I notice, in America they love everyone a year—and then they spit upon him.” (p.247) By 1937, when “I Have a Thing to Tell You” was published, Wolfe had experienced both critical acclaim and critical revulsion firsthand, and I found that line to be quite funny, and also accurate.  

The Party at Jack’s is a bit of a let-down after “I Have a Thing to Tell You” but it also presents us with Wolfe’s growing social concerns. In it, Wolfe describes a party at a fancy New York City apartment building on Park Avenue. (Specifically, the Hotel Marguery, now the site of the JP Morgan Chase building.) The Hotel Marguery was built above railroad tracks that led to Grand Central Terminal, and Wolfe describes the people who live in the apartment feeling the vibrations of the trains passing underneath. This becomes a vivid symbol of the working class rumbling underneath the wealthy above them. It’s also a symbol of the building being built literally over, or on the backs of, the lower class. Wolfe casts his net wide in the story, giving the reader little portraits of many different characters. The sculptor Alexander Calder shows up as “Piggy Hartwell” in the story, performing his circus act with tiny wire figures of his own creation. Wolfe was not impressed with Calder’s act, and according to the story, neither were most of the guests at the party. Maybe Calder’s mobiles would have been more to Wolfe’s taste? 

The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe has been out of print for years. That’s unfortunate, because it gives readers a chance to see Wolfe’s mastery of the short novel, or novella, format, and it also affords us the opportunity to see how his work was presented in magazines during his lifetime.