BITS OF PARADISE: 21 Uncollected Stories

by F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1974

Facts first: These are from the domain -- the last (she says) to appear -- of daughter Scottie who provides a foreword while Professor Matthew Bruccoli of the University of South Carolina contributes a just appraisal. Ten of the stories are Zelda's -- all that she ever wrote in this form; ten are Scott's never previously published in book form; one they wrote together or rather Scott tried to salvage -- ""Our Own Movie Queen"" -- which won't win a prize anywhere, Zelda's stories, in spite of Sara Mayfield's misguided contentions, are mostly pretty trivializations about pretty girls -- save for the elderly ""Miss Ella"" and ""A Couple of Nuts"" which are a little more formed. Several of Scott's stories also lack narrative definition -- excepting ""The Popular Girl"" and ""The Dance"" and the three which Professor Bruccoli rightly indicates as the best here. There's the short-lived tragedy of the failed beautiful young man who couldn't turn over ""A New Leaf""; the antecedent of The Last Tycoon in a prefatory version called ""The Last Kiss""; and the technically inchoate and imperfect ""The Swimmers"" in which Scott tries to express (in a testamentary fashion) something of the way he felt about America -- ""still an idea"" -- ""just a feeling"" -- perhaps only ""a willingness of the heart."" It is of course with a willingness of the heart -- half in love with love to begin with -- that one approaches everything about the Fitzgeralds -- particularly today, particularly here in America where, in the country of the young, romantic illusion is renewed and reified in so many ways -- true and false; or as Zelda says in one of her pretty girl stories -- She was always afraid it ""would slip away from her."" So, shall we waltz for the last time?

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION