Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship

by Matthew J. Bruccoli

With substantial additions and new revelations to Bruccoli's groundbreaking earlier work--including correspondence only recently discovered--this book provides the definitive account of the writers' unpredictable friendship, from their first meeting in Paris in 1925 to Fitzgerald's untimely death in Hollywood in 1940.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Historical

272 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 1994

About the author

Matthew Joseph Bruccoli was an American professor of English at the University of South Carolina. He was the preeminent expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald. He also wrote about writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and John O'Hara, and was editor of the 'Dictionary of Literary Biography'.

Bruccoli's interest in Fitzgerald began in 1947 when he heard a radio broadcast of Fitzgerald's short story 'The Diamond as Big as the Ritz'. That week he tracked down a copy of 'The Great Gatsby', "and I have been reading it ever since," he told interviewers. Bruccoli graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1949, and studied at Cornell University where one of his professors was Vladimir Nabokov and at Yale University where he was a founder member of the fledgling Manuscript Society, graduating in 1953. He was awarded a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Virginia in 1960. Bruccoli, who also taught at the University of Virginia and the Ohio State University, spent nearly four decades teaching at the University of South Carolina. He lived in Columbia, South Carolina, where, according to his New York Times obituary, he "cut a dash on campus, instantly recognizable by his vintage red Mercedes convertible, Brooks Brothers suits, Groucho mustache and bristling crew cut that dated to his Yale days. His untamed Bronx accent also set him apart" (Grimes).

Over the course of his career, he authored over 50 books on F. Scott Fitzgerald and other literary figures. His 1981 biography of Fitzgerald, Some 'Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald', is considered the standard Fitzgerald biography. He has edited many of Fitzgerald's works, from 'This Side of Paradise' to Fitzgerald's unfinished final novel, 'The Love of the Last Tycoon'. Bruccoli has also edited Scott's wife Zelda Fitzgerald's only novel 'Save Me the Waltz'.

While studying Fitzgerald, Bruccoli and his wife Arlyn began to collect all manner of Fitzgerald memorabilia. Bruccoli owned the artist's copy of Celestial Eyes, the cover art by Francis Cugat which appeared on the first edition, and most modern editions, of The Great Gatsby. In 1969, Bruccoli befriended F. Scott and Zelda's daughter Frances "Scottie" Fitzgerald. In 1976, Bruccoli and the Fitzgeralds' daughter Scottie (as Scottie Fitzgerald Smith) published The Romantic Egoists, from the scrapbooks that F. Scott and Zelda had maintained throughout their lives of photographs and book reviews. Later in life Bruccoli and his wife donated their collection to the Thomas Cooper Library at USC. The collection is valued at nearly $2 million.

Bruccoli was general editor of the 'Pittsburgh Series in Bibliography', published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. As part of this series, he produced 'F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Descriptive Bibliography' and, with Richard Layman, 'Ring W. Lardner: A Descriptive Bibliography' (1976). A working draft of the Lardner book was prepared in the summer of 1973 by Bruccoli.

Along with Richard Layman, a Dashiell Hammett scholar and former graduate assistant, and businessman C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr., Bruccoli launched the 'Dictionary of Literary Biography'. The 400-volume reference work contains biographies of more than 12,000 literary figures from antiquity to modern times.

Bruccoli continued working at the University of South Carolina until being diagnosed with a brain tumor, and died June 4, 2008.

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this years ago and remember enjoying it quite a bit. Hemingway could be a real jerk when he wanted to be and Fitzgerald should have defended himself better. Quite a dysfunctional friendship!

[Michelle Prendergast · Rating 5 out of 5]

For one, reading this book should make us all a little guilty about the lost art of letter writing. Somehow I don't think our texts and e-mails full of bastardized lingo are ones for the ages. Anyway, Bruccoli relies primarily on the written communication between Fitzgerald and Hemingway as the accounts of their in person interactions are often apocryphal (I'm including Hemingway's claims about their friendship from A Moveable Feast in this assessment) and their communication with their editor, Maxwell Perkins as the basis of his analysis. A lot of the discussion about Fitzgerald is covered in much greater depth in Bruccoli's biography of him, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, and many of Hemingway's claims about Fitzgerald are similarly aired in his memoir, A Moveable Feast. What I found surprising about this book is Hemingway's correspondences TO Fitzgerald reflect little of his supposed disgust for Fitzgerald. If they had invented the phrase "frenemies" in the early twentieth century, I have the impression that these two lived up to the phrase perfectly. In all seriousness, though, I can't help but feel that Hemingway comes off a little worse -- disingenuous, user, full of bravado, etc, but then there is his work. This book makes me want to read biographies of Maxwell Perkins (editor to Fitz, Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe) and Hemingway to fill in some of the gaps. Overall, really well done.

[D. Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

The bulk of it is correspondence between the two, with relevant details explained by Bruccoli in a non-intrusive manner. The rest is reflections from relevant people, journal entries, letters and the occasional piece of gossip / slander corrected by Bruccoli's fairly exhaustive research. Refreshing to see that neither of them could spell or punctuate - Fitzgerald mispelled Hemingway's name over the course of a decade.

[Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A final word on the relationship between two great American writers, expelling many of the myths, told in their own words through their letters to and from, as well as to their shared editor, Max Perkins at Charles Scribers. I am grateful to know such legendary writers wrote with bad spelling and punctuation in their personal letters to each other, when they were not writing for posterity's sake.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bruccoli reveals yet another facet of Fitzgerald the Man in order to cement Fitzgerald the Legendary Author--and this type by contrasting him with his friend and also mythic Hemingway. Their letters, and Bruccoli's weaving of the narrative, show a complex relationship that was unique for both of them among their literary friendship: always with esteem, brutally honest, and supportive in a way that only non-competing rivals can accomplish. Anyone fascinated by the literary giants of the Lost Generation must take at their writing to each other to fully understand how they reached success and hones their craft.

[Katrine Engelhardt Thomsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the subjects fascinate you, this is a good read. Read it in one night and it made me want to reread all of Fitzgerald’s and Hemingway’s books again.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story of the friendship and correspondence between the literary giants of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. The correspondence starts friendly and detoriates into criticism. Particularily interesting to me is Fitzgerald's descent into depression as his work sold less and less.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruccoli is the preeminant writer on both Fitz and Hem and this is a great book that attempts to sort out the fact from the rumor and romanticism that surround the difficult relationship between two of modern fiction's best authors.

[Jay Wilkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's out of print, but if you can find it, it's worth the effort.

[Kristi Siegel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember this book and the discussion, but given the publication date, it's likelier that I read Bruccoli's precursor Scott and Ernest, which presents essentially the same argument.