From Good to Great

As we near the finish line of our second novel we find that we are in need of some inspiration. It’s that point in the book where you have to make sure you have your reader’s attention. If they were considering putting it down, even if it’s just to get a couple hours sleep, you want to give them a reason to pull an all nighter. So it is now that we look to a story and it’s author who has already made an appearance in the first novel of the trilogy and recently recaptured our collective imagination – offering escapism, perhaps even hope to a new generation.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, as has been the case with far too many authors and artists to mention or count, only received wide critical acclaim after his death. Now he is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

His second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned (1922) propelled him into the New York City elite. To maintain his lifestyle during this time, he also wrote several short stories for magazines. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925) was inspired by his rise to fame and his relationship with Zelda Sayre a rich socialite he fell in love with while stationed in Alabama with the Army. Although she initially rejected him due to his financial situation, Zelda agreed to marry Fitzgerald after he had published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920).

The Great Gatsby is now widely praised, with some even labelling it the “Great American Novel”. In many ways it embodies the essence of America or more specifically the essence of the American Dream. During the 1920’s, in New York City, the young Fitzgeralds quickly became celebrities, as much for their wild behaviour as for the success of This Side of Paradise. They were on order to leave both the Biltmore Hotel and Commodore Hotel for their drunkenness. Zelda once jumped into the fountain at Union Square. It has been documented that when Dorothy Parker, New York writer, poet, critic and satirist, first met them she had said “They did both look as though they had just stepped out of the sun; their youth striking. Everyone wanted to meet him.”

The Fitzgeralds’ social life was fuelled with alcohol which publicly meant little more than napping at parties, but in privacy it led to bitter fights. In 1924 they moved to France to write The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald indicated to his publisher, Maxwell Perkins, his plans “to write something new – something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned”.

It’s a lot to take in, however Fitzgerald’s success somehow seems more meaningful if you understand how he had drawn from his own life. Filled with intricate phrasing and elegant prose his writing is poetic, lyrical and if found in another story potentially distracting. But instead, he uses it masterfully to paint a true portrait of the Golden Age and the subsequent magic of New York at the time. Magic that, in our opinion, has somehow managed to survive.

Having set Percivious Insomnia predominantly in the same local we wanted to pay homage to one of our favourite cities in the world, while in the midst of the story’s fictitious pandemic. Many of our favourite hotspots made their way into the novel, The Plaza, Bergdorf’s, Central Park and many others. We cancelled a trip we had planned to NYC in May of 2020 due to our current pandemic, and to say that it broke our hearts is an understatement.

While the ending of Gatsby is tragic, and unfortunately foreshadows the ending that was to follow for Zelda, who was placed in a mental institution for her schizophrenia, and for Fitzgerald who after a long struggle with alcoholism died in 1940 at age 44; Fitzgerald’s presence, his passion and desperate pursuit to fulfill his dreams are nothing but inspiring. As the reader, one can sense they are in the presence of greatness and perhaps even something “percivious” within his very first lines.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” ~ The Great Gatsby