Master the 40: The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
In 1929 F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Ernest Hemingway that because his short stories now earned $4000 a pop he was "an old whore" who had "mastered the 40 positions" when "in her youth one was enough." But were the upwards of 180 stories he cranked out when not writing The Great Gatsby really the work of a literary prostitute selling out his talent for a fast buck? Kirk Curnutt and Robert Trogdon don't think so. Each episode they draw a random title from a hat and explore its place in Fitzgerald's career, in the magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post or Esquire where it may have appeared, and in the overall development of the American short story. Along the way, they talk literary politics, history, and gossip from the 1920s and 1930s, rediscovering the lively personalities and rivalries that tried to define the porous boundaries between commercial and artistic fiction, between the popular and the avant-garde, between the forgotten and the canonized.
Podcasting since 2020 • 22 episodes
Master the 40: The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Latest Episodes
"The Love Boat"
Imagine F. Scott Fitzgerald in the afterlife, some thirty-six years after his premature passing, discovering to his dismay that the cheesiest TV producer ever has copped the title to a little-known short story of his and turned it into a landma...
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Season 3
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Episode 3
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59:16
"What a Handsome Pair!"
Published in the August 27, 1932, issue of the Saturday Evening Post, "What a Handsome Pair!" clearly reflects F. Scott Fitzgerald's dour view of marital relationships amid the relapse that took Zelda to the Phipps Clinic in Baltimore....
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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57:22
"The Sensible Thing"
Published on July 5, 1924 as F. Scott Fitzgerald was writing The Great Gatsby, this Liberty short story has always been seen as a key rehearsal for his magnum opus. In the story of George Rollins (or George O'Kelly i...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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49:26