A place for FF's to write and read brief reviews of books and films for the benefit of other FF's.

A place for FF's to write and read brief reviews of books and films for the benefit of other FF's.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Fitzgerald & Hemingway: Works and Days, by Scott Donaldson

Somebody should write a super fun, gossipy biography about these two, who were always running around, getting drunk, and being in anecdotes together. This book wasn't it -it's a collection of essays by Prof. Donaldson of William & Mary, who prides himself on being a bit more accessible than other professor types because of his years in the newspaper business. True enough. I saw it at the bookstore and bought it and spent part of my Saturday afternoon pretending I was in college again. I don't recommend it unless you are in the exact mental state I was in at the time. Even then, no.

But I did learn the circumstances of F. Scott's death, in the ground floor apartment of his gf Sheilah Graham, on 1443 N. Hayworth.

"She and Scott had lunched together, and then he settled down in her green armchair to read the Princeton Alumni Weekly [weekly!] while waiting for the doctor's visit. She gave him two Hershey bars for his raging sweet tooth. The last time their eyes met, he sheepishly looked up from making notes on the Princeton football team to lick the chocolate off his fingers. A few minutes later, he rose from the chair as if yanked by an invisible cord, grabbed at the mantelpiece, and crumpled to the floor. By the time the Pulmotor [?] arrived, he was dead."

1 comment:

  1. This book has been near the top of my Amazon Wish List for like a year. I'm now going to move it below both "The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy" and the catalog from the James Ensor show that was at MoMa two years ago.

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