True Romance: 9 Romantic Stories

While the ’70s were about equal rights and the sexual revolution, women in the ’80s were more concerned about their economic situation. It’s easy to understand why some of the women in these stories would fantasize about finding romance on a cruise ship, or running off to a big city and becoming a fashion model, but as this collection of stories reveals, there are no shortcuts to happiness.

These were not the days of speed dating and finding love online. Women looked for love with personal ads and a very rudimentary form of computer dating. Read More

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The First Gatsby Girls Have Stories To Tell

By Ron Hogan

The Great Gatsby is often recognized as one of the 20th century’s great love stories.
Although F. Scott Fitzgerald deviates in some crucial ways from the model for the romance as we popularly understand it—the story’s narrated by the best friend, for one thing, and of course we don’t get the “happily ever after”—his depiction of the doomed relationship between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan has fascinated millions of readers in the decades since its publication in 1925.

For many of us, discovering Gatsby in junior high school may be as far into Fitzgerald as we’re likely to get–but in BroadLit’s Fitzgerald’s Gatsby Girls, a historic collection of eight stories that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in the early 1920s, we’ll find some powerful precursors to Daisy.

Take Sally Carrol, the southern belle you’ll meet in the collection’s short story “The Ice Palace;” had she not fled from her fiancé, who’s to say she wouldn’t wind up with a marriage as unhappy as Daisy’s becomes? And then there are the liberated young women who “live on the Eastern colleges as kittens live on warm milk,” as Fitzgerald writes in “Myra Meets Her Family”:

“You can see her practically any winter afternoon if you stroll through the Biltmore lobby. She will be standing in a group of sophomores just in from Princeton or New Haven, trying to decide whether to dance away the mellow hours at the Club de Vingt or the Plaza Red Room. Afterward one of the sophomores will take her to the theater and ask her down to the February prom—and then dive for a taxi to catch the last train back to college.”

That’s the kind of fun-loving socialite Yanci, the heroine of “The Popular Girl,” would like to be, although, as you’ll learn as the story progresses, she doesn’t quite have what it takes—and I don’t just mean that her money’s run out. What she’s missing is a personality trait that Ardita, the female lead character in “The Offshore Pirate,” talks about when she’s filling her abductor in on her life story, explaining what “courage as a rule of life and something to cling to always” has meant to her:

“I began to build up this enormous faith in myself. I began to see that in all my idols in the past some manifestation of courage had unconsciously been the thing that attracted me. I began separating courage from the other things of life… Still, the men kept gathering—old men and young men, my mental and physical inferiors, most of them, but all intensely desiring to have me—to own this rather magnificent proud tradition I’d built up around me.”

Ardita’s courage certainly sounds like the stuff of a modern romantic heroine, an image that’s reinforced by her cool, calculated demeanor. (When you read her dialogue, you’ll get whyHollywoodwanted to hire Fitzgerald, though writing for the studios made him miserable.) The thing is, though, Ardita’s not quite as sharp a judge of character as she thinks she is—the “pirate” who hijacks her uncle’s yacht and whisks her off to a remote island is an utter fraud, but she falls in love with him anyway.

She’s not the only woman who’s tricked by a man in the name of love in Fitzgerald’s early stories. Sometimes the deception is well-intentioned, like Scott pretending not to know the truth about Yanci’s visit to New Yorkin “The Popular Girl,” but at other times, like the man who flirts with his ex-girlfriend during a costume party in “The Camel’s Back,” the gag takes a decidedly darker turn. (Then there’s the case of “Myra Meets Her Family,” where the deception is meant to drive Myraaway—but she proves to be pretty sneaky herself. – Get a sneak preview from the collection, “Myra Meets Her Family“)

Bernice, the heroine of “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” is persuaded to take a run at being this kind of flirtatious society girl when she visits relatives on the East Coast, but she’s even less cut out for the part than Yanci was, and winds up as the butt of a cruel joke by her cousin. The great thing about Bernice, though, is that—likeMyra—you might be able to dupe her, but she’s able to recover and get back to living life on her own terms.

Fitzgerald describes Bernice and Myra’s triumphs with a combination of admiration and disapproval that mirrors the conflicting impulses of his Saturday Evening Post audience. In 1920, one didn’t want women to be too liberated… and if that meant the hero had to fool the heroine into falling in love with him, well, as romance fans we’ve all seen that story more than a few times. And when it’s done right, like it is in Fitzgerald’s best early Saturday Evening Post stories, it’s a delight to read.

Fitzgerald Fun Facts

FIFTY FITZGERALD FUN FACTS

1. While at Princeton, FSF was on academic probation.
2. In the spring of 1917, FSF dropped out of school to avoid being expelled.
3. FSF enlisted in the Army in 1917 and was commissioned a second lieutenant.

1. Fearful that he would die in WWI, FSF wrote his first novel in the weeks between his enlistment and the day he was ordered to report for duty.
2. In 1917, FSF sent this novel, The Romantic Egoist, to Scribner’s, who rejected it.
3. While stationed at Camp Sheridan, outside Montgomery, AL, FSF met Zelda.
4. Zelda initially refused to marry FSF because he had no money.
5. When the war ended, FSF went to New York and worked for the Barron Collier advertising agency.
6. FSF left Barron Collier and went home to St. Paul, where he took a job repairing cars while he revised The Romantic Egoist.
7. When he resubmitted it a second time, Scribner’s accepted FSF’s novel and renamed it This Side of Paradise.
8. TSOP was published on March 26 1920.
9. Zelda reconsidered and came to New York, where they were married on April 3, 1920, eight days after TSOP was published.
10. FSF and Zelda were married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
11. TSOP sold out its first printing in 24 hours and went through 12 reprintings in its initial release.
12. FSF’s only child, daughter Frances Scott Fitzgerald, was born October 26, 1921.
13. In 1922, FSF wrote his only play, The Vegetable.  It was not a hit.
14. In 1922, FSF and family moved to Long Island, the setting of Gatsby, and lived there for a year.
15. FSF’s second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, was published March of 1922.
16. In December, 1922, Warner Brothers released a film version of The Beautiful and Damned, starring Marie Prevost.
17. The director of the Beautiful and Damned film was William Seiter, who found fame in the 1930s directing films with Shirley Temple.
18. FSF called the film version of Beautiful and Damned “by far the worst movie I’ve ever seen in my life – cheap, vulgar, ill-constructed and shoddy.”
19. The Great Gatsby was written in 1923, while the Fitzgeralds lived in France.
20. In France, FSF became part of the “Lost Generation,” which included Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Picasso.
21. FSF helped Hemingway find a publisher for his work.
22. Hemingway detested Zelda and called her “insane.”
23. Zelda thought Hemingway was a closeted homosexual who had a crush on FSF.
24. FSF and family moved from France to Rome, where he revised Gatsby.
25. The original title of The Great Gatsby was Trimalchio of West Egg.  Trimalchio is a character in Satyricon, who presides over orgies.
26. Critical response to The Great Gatsby was good, but sales were not.
27. For most of his life, FSF lived on money advanced by Harold Ober, his agent, against payment for stories to be written.
28. When Harold Ober stopped advancing money to FSF, FSF severed all ties with him.
29. FSF spent 1927 in Hollywood, but felt that movies were “degrading,” so quickly returned to fiction.
30. Zelda was initially hospitalized in 1930, in a French sanitorium, with a diagnosis of “schizophrenia,” which was then a catch-all name for mental illness.
31. For the rest of her life, from 1930 to 1948, Zelda spent the majority of time in psychiatric hospitals, in Europe and the U.S.
32. In 1932, Scribner’s published Zelda’s novel, Save Me the Waltz.  FSF was furious because she had drawn on their life together and used material that he had planned for his next novel, Tender is the Night.
33. Tender is the Night was published in 1934 and was FSF’s last complete novel.
34. FSF returned to Hollywood in the mid-1930s and was under contract to MGM through 1939.
35. FSF wrote uncredited dialogue for Gone With the Wind.
36. From 1939 to his death in 1940, FSF wrote 17 Pat Hobby stories, describing the life of an alcoholic free-lance screenwriter in Hollywood.  These were published in Esquire magazine.
37. FSF had his first heart attack in Schwab’s drugstore, the same place where Lana Turner was “discovered” at the soda fountain.
38. At the time of his death, FSF lived on the estate of movie actor Edward Everett Horton, in Encino, CA.
39. At the time of his death, FSF was having an affair with Sheilah Graham, a young British journalist.
40. The night before his death, FSF attended a screening at the Pantages Theatre of “This Thing Called Love,” starring Rosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas.
41. During the visitation before FSF’s funeral, Dorothy Parker reportedly said, “the poor son-of-a-bitch,” a line from The Great Gatsby.
42. Before his death, FSF had been working on a novel entitled The Love of the Last Tycoon, a story about the movie business.
43. TLOTLT was published posthumously, in its unfinished form in 1941.
44. TLOTLT was filmed in 1976.  It starred Robert DeNiro and was written by Harold Pinter and directed by Elia Kazan.
45. TLOTLT was Elia Kazan’s final film.
46. J.D. Salinger once referred to himself as “Fitzgerald’s successor.”
47. FSF was the first cousin, once removed, of Mary Surratt, who was hanged in 1865 for conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

Battlefield of Love

Soldiers and the Ones Who Love Them

Read a Free Story Here–Haunted Daughter of an Air Force Man

Love.  War.  Pain. Passion. Relationships lost. Romance rekindled.

Many generations of Americans have struggled with sending loved ones into battle and taking care of them when they return. Yet all of the stories in this collection have the same theme—whether they are about World War II, Vietnam, or the Gulf War—love is critical to our survival. It makes most, stronger. Read More

All Things Gatsby: Great Links to Visit

Amazon’s Z Explores the Passionate Tumultuous Life of the Original Gatsby Girl.

She was beautiful, impulsive, carefree, and determined to make a name for herself. Zelda Fitzgerald, the subject of a new Amazon series, was the iconic woman of the 1920s Jazz Age and the inspiration for many of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s female characters. Read More

Scott & Zelda–A Marriage on Fire

F. Scott Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre while he was stationed in Alabama, serving in the United States Army during the First World War—just as Jay Gatsby first meets Daisy in the backstory to The Great Gatsby. Read More

Fitzgerald: Master of Love, Longing and Popular Girls

In a 1922 letter to his agent, Harold Ober, F. Scott Fitzgerald expressed frustration that one of his most creative stories, “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” didn’t fetch as much money in the…Read More

F. Scott Fitzgerald and His Independent, Impetuous, and Amazing American Girl(s)

By the time he published The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald was already one of the best-known authors in America.  His fame had begun years earlier with the bestselling novel, This Side of Paradise, which sold out in 24 hours and went through 12 re-printings. Read More

The First Gatsby Girls Have Stories to Tell             

The Great Gatsby is often recognized as one of the 20th century’s great love stories. Although Fitzgerald deviates in some crucial ways from the model for the romance as we popularly understand it—the story’s narrated by the best friend, for one thing, and of course we don’t get … Read More

All About F. Scott Fitzgerald

He was the voice of a generation. He expressed the yearnings, exuberance, and impatience of young Americans entering the modern age. Read More

Fitzgerald and His Stories: Hot Topics on Video

She was an impulsive, fashionable and carefree 1920s woman who embodied the essence of the Gatsby Girl — F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda. As Fitzgerald said, “I married the heroine of my stories.” All of the eight short stories contained in this collection were inspired by Zelda. Read More

Love to Talk Books? Check Out Our Gatsby Girls Discussion Guide

This discussion guide has been created for book club groups or others who are interested in exploring the F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories collected in the book, Gatsby Girls. The stories in the collection first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in the 1920s  Read More

The Great Gatsby on the Big Screen

The Great Gatsby follows Fitzgerald-like, would-be writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz and bootleg kings. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) and across the bay… Read More

50 Fitzgerald Fun Facts

1. While at Princeton, FS was on academic probation.
2. In the spring of 1917, FSF dropped out of school to avoid being expelled.
3. FSF enlisted in the Army in 1917 and was commissioned a second lieutenant.
4. Fearful that he would die in WWI, FSF wrote his first novel in the weeks between his enlistment and the day he… Read More

Listen to Gatsby Girls Audio Book

Fitzgerald’s stories, first published by the Post between 1920 and 1922, brought the Jazz Age and the flapper to life and confirmed that America was changing faster than ever before. Listen to the stories that made F. Scott Fitzgerald one of the…Listen Here

Stop the Presses! Gatsby Girls Is Here

BroadLit, a romance Transmedia company, in partnership with SD Entertainment, an intellectual property studio, is delighted to re-publish works written by one of America’s most legendary fiction writers for the Saturday Evening Post. In story after story, the heroines of Fitzgerald’s stories were reckless and frivolous and happy.  Read More

The Reviews Are In!

“Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s. He finished four novels.  Read More

“I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it’s these things I’d believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn’t all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Age of Eve

Return of the Nephilim

By D.M. Pratt

Read the First Two Chapters Here

Eve Dowling, a talented writer for a successful magazine that covers New Orleans society events, is leading an exciting life filled with friends, family and work–until it is turned upside down by a fateful encounter with a stunningly handsome mystery man who ignites her most sensual fantasies. Read More

Women Undone

Get a Sneak Peek. Read a Chapter Here!

While the ’70s were about equal rights and the sexual revolution, women in the ’80s were more concerned about their economic situation. It’s easy to understand why some of the women in these stories would fantasize about finding romance on a cruise ship, or running off to a big city and becoming a fashion model, but as this collection of stories reveals, there are no shortcuts to happiness. These were not the days of speed dating and finding love online. Women looked for love with personal ads and a very rudimentary form of computer dating. Read More

Bedroom Roulette

Read A Swinging Chapter Here

Starstruck Romance and Other Hollywood Tails

Read the First Chapter Here

As her Second Acts Dating Service truly takes off, Cynthia Amas discovers that in the heady world of high-end Hollywood romance, with success comes complexity. In this wildly seductive romp through the lush canyons and lavish neighborhoods of Los Angeles, the line between business and pleasure quickly blurs in a dizzying rush of sex and celebrity.

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