Kristine asked where to start reading F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I recommend starting with some of his most important short stories, then reading The Great Gatsby—one of the prime contenders for the title “The Great American Novel.”
The best collection of Fitzgerald’s stories is The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
I’d start with “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, ” then “Babylon Revisited,” “May Day,” “Absolution,” “The Rich Boy,” “Winter Dreams,” “One Trip Abroad, ” “The Last of the Belles,” and “Crazy Sunday.”
Two of my favorite stories are “The Ice Palace” and “The Offshore Pirate.” Oh, and you need to read “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (widely anthologized), “The Swimmers,” and “‘The Sensible Thing.'” After that, just finish the rest of the collection!
Fitzgerald’s stories vary greatly in literary quality. He increasingly grew to resent his need to write stories to finance what he regarded as his serious work on novels, and some critics have thus dismissed his stories as hack work.
But his best short fiction was a vehicle for sharp social observation, and he often used his stories to explore themes and ideas related to his novels—sometimes even transplanting passages directly from story to novel. I’ll write more about that process another time.
Enjoy!