Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (585 page)

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation

Culver City,

California

December 24,
1938

Dear Max:

Since the going-out-of-print of
Paradise
and the success (or is it one?) of
The Fifth Column
I have come to feel somewhat neglected. Isn’t my reputation being allowed to let slip away? I mean what’s left of it. I am still a figure to many people and the number of times I still see my name in Time and
The
New Yorker, etc., makes me wonder if it should be allowed to casually disappear - when there are memorial double deckers to such fellows as Farrell and Steinbeck.

I think something ought to be published this spring. You had a plan for the three novels and I have another plan, of which more hereafter, for another big book; the recession is over for awhile and I have the most natural ambition to see my stuff accessible to another generation. Bennett Cerf obviously isn’t going to move about
Tender
and it seems to me things like that need a spark from a man’s own publisher. It was not so long ago that
Tender
was among the dozen best of a bad season and had an offer from the Literary Guild - so I can’t be such a long chance as, say, Callaghan. Either of the two books I speak of might have an awfully good chance to pay their way. A whole generation now has never read
This Side of Paradise.
(I’ve often thought that if Frank Bunn at Princeton had had a few dozen copies on his stands every September he could have sold them all by Christmas.)

But I am especially concerned about
Tender
- that book is not dead. The
depth
of its appeal exists -I meet people constantly who have the same exclusive attachment to it as others had to
Gatsby
and
Paradise,
people who identified themselves with Dick Diver. Its great fault is that the true beginning - the young psychiatrist in Switzerland - is tucked away in the middle of the book. If pages 151-212 were taken from their present place and put at the start, the improvement in appeal would be enormous. In fact the mistake was noted and suggested by a dozen reviewers. To shape up the ends of that change would, of course, require changes in half a dozen other pages. And as you suggested, an omnibus book should also have a preface or prefaces - besides my proposed glossary of absurdities and inaccuracies in
This Side of Paradise.
This last should attract some amused attention. The other idea is this:

A Big collection of stories leading off with Philippe - entirely rewritten and pulled together into a 30,000-word novelette. The collection could consist of:

1. —
Philippe
2.
—
Pre-war (Basil and Josephine)

3. — ‘May Day 4. — The Jazz Age (the dozen or so best jazz stories)

5. — About a dozen others including ‘Babylon’

The reason for using
Philippe
is this: he is to some extent completed in the fourth story (which you have never read) and, in spite of some muddled writing, he is one of the best characters I’ve ever ‘drawn.’ He should be a long book - but whether or not my M-G-M contract is renewed I’m going to free-lance out here another year to lay by some money, and then do my modern novel. So it would be literally
years
before I got to
Philippe
again- if ever.

In my work here I can find time for such a rewrite of Phillippe as I contemplate - I could finish it by the first of February. The other stories would go into the collection unchanged. Unlike Ernest I wouldn’t want to put in
all
the stories from all four books but I’d like to add four or five never published before.

I am desperately keen on both these schemes - I think the novels should come first and, unless there are factors there you haven’t told me about, I think it is a shame to put it off. It would not sell wildly at first but unless you make some gesture of confidence I see my reputation dying on its feet from lack of nourishment. If you could see the cards for my books in the public libraries here in Los Angeles continually in demand even to this day, you would know I have never had wide distribution in some parts of the country. When T
his Side of Paradise
stood first in
The Bookman’s
Monthly
List
it didn’t even appear in the score of the Western States.

You can imagine how distasteful it is to blow my own horn like this but it comes from a deep feeling that something could be done, if it is done at once, about my literary standing - always admitting that I have any at all.

Ever your friend,

Scott

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation

Culver City,

California

January 4,
1939

Dear Max:

Your letter rather confused me. I had never clearly understood that it was the Modern Library who were considering doing my three books as a giant volume. I thought it was an enterprise of yours. If they show no special enthusiasm about bringing out
Tender
by itself, I don’t see how they would be interested in doing a giant anyhow. You spoke of it last year as something only the recession kept you from doing.

What I don’t like is the out-of-print element. In a second I’m going to discuss the
Philippe
business with you, but first let me say that I would rather have This
Side of Paradise
in print, if only in that cheap American Mercury book edition than not in print at all. I see they have just done Elliot Paul’s
Indelible.
How do you think they would feel about it? And what is your advice on the subject?

Now about
Philippe.
When I wrote you I had envisaged another year of steady work here. At present, while it is possible that I may be on the coast for another year, it is more likely that the work will be from picture to picture with the prospect of taking off three or four months in the year, perhaps even more, for literary work.
Philippe
interests me. I am afraid, though, it would have to be supported by something more substantial. I would have to write 10,000 or 15,000 more words on it to make it as big a book as Gatsby and I’m not at all sure that it would have a great unity. You will remember that the plan in the beginning was tremendously ambitious - there was to have been Philippe as a young man founding his fortunes - Philippe as a middle-aged man participating in the Capetian founding of France as a nation - Philippe as an old man and the consolidation of the feudal system. It was to have covered a span of about sixty years from 880 A.D. to 950. The research required for the second two parts would be quite tremendous and the book would have been (or would be) a piece of great self-indulgence, though I admit self-indulgence often pays unexpected dividends.

Still, if periods of three or four months are going to be possible in the next year or so I would much rather do a modern novel. One of those novels that can only be written at the moment and when one is full of the idea - as Tender should have been written in its original conception, all laid on the Riviera. I think it would be a quicker job to write a novel like that between 50 and 60,000 words long than to do a thorough revision job with an addition of 15,000 words on
Philippe.
In any case I’m going to decide within the next month and let you know.

Thanks for your letter. I wish you’d send me a copy of the Tom Wolfe article because I never see anything out here. John wrote about me in the
Virginia Quarterly,
too.

Ever your friend,

Scott

P.S. I hope Jane and Scottie see a lot of each other if Scottie stays in, but as I suspected, she has tendencies toward being a play-girl and has been put on probation. I hope she survives this February.

5521 Amestoy Avenue

Encino,

California

February
25, 1939

Dear Max:

I was sorry that a glimpse of you was so short but I had a hunch that you had wanted to talk over something with your daughter and that I was rather intruding. How pretty she was - she seemed a little frightened of me for some reason, or maybe it was one of my self-conscious days.

One of the things I meant to tell you was how much I enjoyed the book Cantigny by Evarts, whom I gather is a cousin of yours - or is that true? It seemed to me very vivid. It reminded me of one of the best of Tom Boyd’s stories in Point of
Honor
though the attitude was quite satisfactorily different.

No doubt you have talked to Harold in regard to that life insurance business. Of course, he thinks I am rash, but I think it would be morally destructive to continue here any longer on the factory worker’s basis. Conditions in the industry somehow propose the paradox: ‘We brought you here for your individuality but while you’re here we insist that you do everything to conceal it.’

I have several plans, and within a day or so will be embarked on one of them. It is wonderful to be writing again instead of patching - do you know in that Gone with
the
Wind job I was absolutely forbidden to use any words except those of Margaret Mitchell; that is, when new phrases had to be invented one had to thumb through as if it were Scripture and check out phrases of hers which would cover the situation!

Best wishes always.

Scott

P.S. I am, of course, astonished that Tom Wolfe’s book did what you told me. I am sure that if he had lived and meant to make a portrait of you he would at least have given it a proper tone and not made you the villain. It is astonishing what people will do though. Ernest’s sharp turn against me always seemed to have pointless childish quality - so much so that I really never felt any resentment about it. Your position in the Wolfe matter is certainly an exceedingly ironic one.

5521 Amestoy Avenue

Encino,

California

May 22,
1939

Dear Max:

Just had a letter from Charlie Scribner - a very nice letter and I appreciated it and will answer it. He seemed under the full conviction that the novel was about Hollywood and I am in terror that this misinformation may have been disseminated to the literary columns. If I ever gave any such impression it is entirely false: I said that the novel was about some things that had happened to me in the last two years. It is distinctly not about Hollywood (and if it were it is the last impression that I would want to get about).

It is, however, progressing nicely, except that I have been confined to bed for a few weeks with a slight return of my old malady. It was nice getting a glimpse of you, however brief - especially that last day. I caught the plane at half past four and had an uneventful trip west.

I have grown to like this particular corner of California where I shall undoubtedly stay all summer. Dates for a novel are, as you know, uncertain, but I am blocking this out in a fashion so that, unlike
Tender,
I may be able to put it aside for a month and pick it up again at the exact spot factually and emotionally where I left off.

Wish I had some news, but what I have seen lately is only what you can see outside a window. With very best to all - and please do correct that impression which Charlie seems to have.

Ever your friend,

Scott

5521
Amestoy
Avenue

Encino,

California

November 20,
1939

Dear Max:

A lot depends on this week. I’ve about decided to show him (Littauer)  the first nine or ten thousand words and I think it’s literally about fifty-fifty whether he’ll want it or not. The material is definitely ‘strong.’ As soon as I hear anything from him I’ll let you know.

Of course, if he will back me it will be a life-saver, but I am by no means sure that I will ever be a popular writer again. This much of the book, however, should be as fair a test as any. Thanks for your letter.

Ever yours,

F. Scott Fitzgerald

5521 Amestoy Avenue

Encino, California

December
19, 1939

Dear Max:

The opinion about the novel seems half good and half bad. In brief, about four or five people here like it immensely, Leland likes it and you like it.
Colliers,
however, seems indifferent to it though they like the outline. My plan is to just go ahead and dig it out. If I could interest any magazine, of course, it would be a tremendous help but today a letter from the Post seems to indicate that it is not their sort of material. The plan has changed a bit since I first wrote the outline, but it is essentially as you know it.

Your offering to loan me another thousand dollars was the kindest thing I ever heard of. It certainly comes at the most opportune time. The first thing is this month’s and last month’s rent and I am going to take the liberty of giving my landlady a draft on you for $205.00, for January 2nd. This with the $150.00 that you have already sent me is $355.00. For the other $645.00, will you let me know when it is available?

I am not terribly in debt as I was in 1935-7, but uncomfortably so. I think though my health is getting definitely better and if I can do some intermittent work in the studios between each chapter of the novel instead of this unprofitable hacking for Esquire, I shall be able to get somewhere by spring.

Max, you are so kind. When Harold withdrew from the questionable honor of being my banker, I felt completely numb financially and I suddenly wondered what money was and where it came from. There had always seemed a little more somewhere and now there wasn’t Anyhow, thank you.

Ever your friend,

Scott