I just finished reading “The Disenchanted,” a fictionalized
version of the time a young Budd Schulberg (the author of the book) spent with
F. Scott Fitzgerald toward the end of the latter’s life. Fitzgerald, broke and
suffering from alcoholism, took on the job of collaborating on a movie script
about a winter carnival. Unfortunately it all ended badly.
Knowing the background of the novel makes it worth a read.
The book starts from the point of view of Schulberg’s alter ego, Shep, and then
veers into a very long flashback about the famous novelist’s fall from grace,
then brings back Shep but ends on the Fitzgerald character. This handling of
POV leaves something to be desired but there are plenty of positives to
compensate.
Isn’t it weird how having even a tenuous connection to a
book or film makes it more interesting? A good friend of mine is a distant
relative of Fitzgerald and that has always made me feel that I have a slight
link to him.
While I was reading this book, there was an article in the
Wall Street Journal about Fitzgerald’s Hollywood short story collection, “The
Pat Hobby Stories.” It’s about a hack writer in the movie business, set in the
30’s --but not that much has changed. I think of these stories as the literary
precursors of “Adventures in the Screen Trade.” If you’ve never encountered
these stories and are at all interested in the film business, you’re in for a treat.
(Interested in writing your own novel? My book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey, will guide you from idea through to publication.)
