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.
Master the 40: The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Magnetism"
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Published in the Saturday Evening Post on March 3, 1928 "Magnetism" tells the story of an "accidental" Hollywood star, George Hannaford, whose life is beguiled by celebrity and the pitfalls of fame. And by pitfalls we mean all the women who have fallen under the sway of his charisma, or what kids today call "rizz." There's George's wife, who resents his handsome mug; his costar, who's fighting off a powerful attraction to him that may cost him his marriage; his Mexican maid, who would love a little la cucaracha in the kitchen with him; and, most dangerously, the studio script girl whose fantasies lead her convict brother to hatch a plot to bilk George. Wildly overstuffed with plot, "Magnetism" is Fitzgerald's most overt attempt at exploring the "IT" factor that separates the stars from us normies. Inspired by Fitzgerald's infatuation with Hollywood ingenue Lois Moran, the story is a blueprint for the author's preoccupation with charm, which will become a central theme of Tender Is the Night in 1934. We explore how charisma, sex appeal, and "IT" emerged as cultural phenomena in the early 20th century and how this story critiques the very notion of star power.