Book Review: Six Tales of the Jazz Age and Other Stories is an odd assortment of F. Scott Fitzgerald's work, valuable for the introduction written by daughter Frances "Scottie" Fitzgerald (then Lanahan) and because it contains three stories from the hard-to-find All the Sad Young Men (1926) (published following The Great Gatsby). The remaining six stories were taken from an earlier book (as suggested by the title) Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) (published following The Beautiful and Damned). Generally this selection first assembled in 1960 consists of stories that had not been chosen for other anthologies; the most notable such at the time was Malcolm Cowley's The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1951). Thus, mostly the weaker of Fitzgerald's works. As Frances Fitzgerald notes in the Introduction here: "A few short pieces in the original collections have been left out, for the very reason that they are 'pieces' rather than stories proper." The six stories included here from Tales of the Jazz Age are:
"The Jelly-Bean" - True love makes a young man want to be a better person, and then it doesn't.
"The Camel's Back" - An absurd story about how the course of true love never does run smooth, except for camels.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" - The strongest story in this collection, more affecting than I expected given its odd and awkward premise, and later made into a 2008 film with Brad Pitt. Surprising that this wasn't included in the Cowley anthology.
"Tarquin of Cheapside" - More clever than brilliant and clearly the product of a lit major, but clever nonetheless.
"'O Russet Witch!'" - A fable of fantasy and regret for the Jazz Age.
"The Lees of Happiness" - Another fable of lost chances and what might've been.
But Six Tales of the Jazz Age and Other Stories also includes "other stories." F. Scott once told his daughter: "I guess I am too much a moralist at heart and really want to preach at people in some acceptable form rather than entertain them." This attitude is reflected in the three stories found here from All the Sad Young Men:
"The Adjuster" - A young wife and mother still wants to enjoy life after marriage, but in a harsh lesson learns the error of her ways. A generally unpleasant story with an even more unpleasant moral. Judgmental and a bit prudish.
"Hot and Cold Blood" - A husband and soon-to-be father is goaded by his wife into selfishness, but soon learns the error of his ways. A more palatable moral, but still a harsh lesson for the shrewish wife.
"Gretchen's Forty Winks" - A young wife and mother refuses to delay gratification for six weeks even to establish the couple in wealth, so her husband masterfully takes matters into his own hands.
Not the best introduction to Fitzgerald's stories and not a particularly strong selection of his work, serving as a catch-all for works not collected elsewhere. But Fitzgerald is always interesting, even at his most average, and Six Tales of the Jazz Age provides a glimpse into the wide variety of his efforts. No one will be harmed by reading these stories, but the four original collections and the anthology by Matthew J. Bruccoli, The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1989) are best. [3★]
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