David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "f-scott-fitzgerald"
GUESTS ON EARTH
Guests on Earth: A Novel by Lee SmithMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Asheville, North Carolina, was the setting for Thomas Wolfe’s LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL; It is also the home of George Vanderbilt’s huge estate, Biltmore. What I didn’t know was that this was where Highland Hospital, where Zelda Fitzgerald was institutionalized, was located.
Highland hospital was atypical as a sanitarium in that Dr. Robert S. Carroll, its director, emphasized exercise, diet, gardening and theater as well as electric and insulin shock therapy.
But this novel is not about Zelda Fitzgerald. The main character is Evalina Touissant, a budding musician and accompanist, who becomes unhinged when her mother commits suicide. She doesn’t quite ring true as her catatonic or schizophrenic problems happen off stage. Everybody loves Evalina, including the cook’s daughter, Ella Jean, who can sing and play the banjo like nobody’s business. Her family will remind you of the Carters. One of the problems I had with the book is that there are too many characters that author Lee Smith expects us to remember. Two of them, buddies of Evalina, Jinx and Dixie, seem like the same person. Dixie is a beautiful Southern belle with a connection to the movie “Gone With the Wind”; she seems to suffer from clinical depression, but we never find out exactly what led her to Highland. Jinx is a bubbly redhead who is always the life of the party, but keeps returning to Highland; Smith also hints at a homicidal side to her.
Zelda keeps popping in and out of the book. She likes to paint in prime colors, really weird pictures that wound up at the Corcoran Museum in Washington D.C. Zelda was still dancing while at Highland hospital and Evalina, whom Zelda called “Patricia Pieface” was her accompanist.
Evalina had two lovers while at Highland, Freddie, a doctor who wanted to marry her and a wild man nicknamed “Pan” who helped out at the greenhouse. Pan had a terrible childhood, but somehow overcame it, embracing nature.
The thread of the story moves toward the eventual fire that took the life of Zelda, and several other patients in the Central Building at Highland. There‘s a disappointing epilogue that doesn‘t answer enough questions, but I like midlist writers, and this one definitely qualifies.
View all my reviews
West of Sunset
Stewart O'Nan does best when he writes about ordinary people as he did in LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER. When I read that, I couldn't tell if it was fiction or non-fiction. That's not the case in WEST OF SUNSET, about F. Scott Fitzgerald's last days.
He's out West trying to make some money as a screenwriter to pay for his daughter Scottie's college and Zelda's stay at a sanitarium.
The only time he actually got a screen credit was for THE THREE COMRADES, which was supposed to star Spencer Tracy who bowed out because of appendicitis. Scott was plagued by a co-writer, whom he considered a hack. The man questioned most of Scott's scenes. Apparently this was payback for when Scott used the man's real name in one of his books, portraying him as a doofus. But the film made money, and it got good reviews. Joseph Mankiewicz also had a penchant for making changes while he directed, thusly the references to the nazis were deleted. One of the financiers was German.
Sheila Graham is also a major figure in the book, as is Zelda. Sheila portrayed herself as a high-classed Englishwoman, but she eventually tells Scott Sheila Graham wasn't her real name; she was born Cockney and worked her way up from the bottom. They fight over Scott's drinking and she doesn't let him move in with her until his heart begins to give out.
Scott doesn't start working on THE LAST TYCOON until the last part of the book. He had to borrow money from Maxwell Perkins in order to pay for Scottie's tuition and Zelda's care. He tried to serialize the book in some of the major magazines but was turned down, which mortified him. He had been pretty much blackballed as a screenwriter because of his drinking.
Familiar people keep popping up. If you remember the golden age of television, you'll recognize screenwriter Budd Schulberg who worked with Scott on a picture set at Dartmouth University; it was about the winter carnival; everybody was drinking, a bad place for Scott and Budd as they were both eventually fired for imbibing more than writing.
Everybody wants to know about Zelda. I know it's sounds like Scott was unfaithful, but he remembered the young and vibrant Zelda, and he went to see her out East quite often. Most of the time, she sounds normal, calling him by his nickname, Do-Do, but then she lapses. She has a big one when they finally let her go home to visit her mother and sisters in Alabama.
A big surprise is that Scott worked on GONE WITH THE WIND. It was “all hands on deck” as Scott's boss at Metro told Scott, but he only lasted a few weeks.
There's a cute little sequence toward the end when Scott hires a college student as a secretary to work on LAST TYCOON. He calls her Francois, her real name being Francis. She calls him monsieur. She's a great sounding board, as he interprets her body language when she reads back what he's written. Sheila is jealous.
Despite the above, I don't think there's enough here to merit a book. You're probably better off reading one of the many biographies. The biggest outrage seems to be that the doctor's weren't honest with Scott. He thought he had angina. Maybe if he knew he had serious heart disease he would have taken better care of himself. After all he'd had a heart attack at a movie theater the same day he died. Instead of going to the hospital, he made an appointment with his cardiologist for the next day.
He's out West trying to make some money as a screenwriter to pay for his daughter Scottie's college and Zelda's stay at a sanitarium.
The only time he actually got a screen credit was for THE THREE COMRADES, which was supposed to star Spencer Tracy who bowed out because of appendicitis. Scott was plagued by a co-writer, whom he considered a hack. The man questioned most of Scott's scenes. Apparently this was payback for when Scott used the man's real name in one of his books, portraying him as a doofus. But the film made money, and it got good reviews. Joseph Mankiewicz also had a penchant for making changes while he directed, thusly the references to the nazis were deleted. One of the financiers was German.
Sheila Graham is also a major figure in the book, as is Zelda. Sheila portrayed herself as a high-classed Englishwoman, but she eventually tells Scott Sheila Graham wasn't her real name; she was born Cockney and worked her way up from the bottom. They fight over Scott's drinking and she doesn't let him move in with her until his heart begins to give out.
Scott doesn't start working on THE LAST TYCOON until the last part of the book. He had to borrow money from Maxwell Perkins in order to pay for Scottie's tuition and Zelda's care. He tried to serialize the book in some of the major magazines but was turned down, which mortified him. He had been pretty much blackballed as a screenwriter because of his drinking.
Familiar people keep popping up. If you remember the golden age of television, you'll recognize screenwriter Budd Schulberg who worked with Scott on a picture set at Dartmouth University; it was about the winter carnival; everybody was drinking, a bad place for Scott and Budd as they were both eventually fired for imbibing more than writing.
Everybody wants to know about Zelda. I know it's sounds like Scott was unfaithful, but he remembered the young and vibrant Zelda, and he went to see her out East quite often. Most of the time, she sounds normal, calling him by his nickname, Do-Do, but then she lapses. She has a big one when they finally let her go home to visit her mother and sisters in Alabama.
A big surprise is that Scott worked on GONE WITH THE WIND. It was “all hands on deck” as Scott's boss at Metro told Scott, but he only lasted a few weeks.
There's a cute little sequence toward the end when Scott hires a college student as a secretary to work on LAST TYCOON. He calls her Francois, her real name being Francis. She calls him monsieur. She's a great sounding board, as he interprets her body language when she reads back what he's written. Sheila is jealous.
Despite the above, I don't think there's enough here to merit a book. You're probably better off reading one of the many biographies. The biggest outrage seems to be that the doctor's weren't honest with Scott. He thought he had angina. Maybe if he knew he had serious heart disease he would have taken better care of himself. After all he'd had a heart attack at a movie theater the same day he died. Instead of going to the hospital, he made an appointment with his cardiologist for the next day.
