F. Scott Fitzgerald, Circa 1935

After the Good Gay Times, by Tony Buttitta.


I was browsing the stacks of a univesity library recently when I came across this title wedged in among the other books about F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had never heard of this title before, though I have read most of the Fitzgerald biographies---Arthur Mizener, Scott Donaldson, Turnbull.

Those biographies may be more polished than this book, but this one contains the first-hand recollections of one who had known and befriended Fitzgerald during the summer of 1935. The summer of 1935. That phrase alone summons thoughts of desperation and great want.

That summer Tony Buttitta was an aspiring writer and owner of a small bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina. His description of his first encounter with Fitzgerald elides smoothly with our image of a faded author with an undying lust for alcohol, but his character soon grows wider and more complex.

By 1935 Fitzgerald was in bad shape---The Crack Up essays would appear within a year---alcoholic and still stung by the failure of Tender is the Night, the book into which he had thrown all he had. Most biographers write about the Fitzgerald of these years in piteous tones, and this wonderfully lyrical writer assumes tropic dimensions. Fitzgerald becomes a plaything. But this book gives Fitzgerald a new voice, one that bridges the long gaps between novels after 1925. Buttitta recalls a man still in possession of a sharp mind, concerned about the fate of civilization, and whether drunk or sober willing to discuss Spengler and Marx. Fitzgerald was still attractive to women; he broke off a relationship---too late, it turned out--- with an adoring woman willing to pay off his ample financial debts, in part out of loyalty to Zelda but also because he was well aware of the the ruinous effect he had on the women around him. Meanwhile, he admitted and regretted that he pushed his ailing wife Zelda into dancing--this contradicts the claims of some biographers that he attempted to prevent it. His feelings toward Ernest Hemingway were complex: a mixture of envy, respect, and tenderness.

There is a chapter about 2/3 of the way into the book, where Buttitta and Fitzgerald, with an eye to taking a room, pay a visit to the mother of Thomas Wolfe, whose Look Homeward, Angel Fitzgerald had admired. Wolfe's mother was loquacious, and she spoke at some length about the effect that her son's autobiographical novel had had on her and her family. At the end of the visit, Mrs. Wolfe mentioned that she didn't take in drunks. Buttitta's recollection of the effect of that remark on Fitzgerald speaks volumes about the depth of his despair; he couldn't even rent a room from the mother of a far inferior novelist than himself.

Above all, Fitzgerald was alone, and hopelessly so. He spoke of friends but never seemed to have any. He had retained his honor through it all--conveying deep concern about his daughter and wife---but I got the impression of a man waiting impatiently for it all to end.