Against the Current

I mentioned Frances Kroll Ring in a previous post; she knew Carey McWilliams, was F. Scott Fitzgerald's secretary in Los Angeles, and wrote Against the Current: As I Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald (Figueroa Press, 2005). Highly recommended. Where else can you read about a major American writer bringing a briefcase full of Cokes to a Hollywood studio to get him through the day?

Or this exchange: When Fitzgerald worked on the screenplay for Gone With the Wind, his daughter Scottie, then at Vassar, said she thought the novel was one of the great masterpieces of all time. Her father replied that it was "interesting, surprisingly honest, consistent and workman-like throughout and I felt no contempt for it but only a certain pity for those who considered it the supreme achievement of the human mind." Can you imagine getting that letter from your father? Me neither.

Next up: Last Call, with Jeremy Irons, Sissy Spacek, and Neve Campbell as Frances.