内容紹介
『グレート・ギャッツビー』で一世を風靡し時代の寵児となったフィッツジェラルド。しかし、1929年世界恐慌で潮目は変わ り、妻ゼルダの精神病もあり酒に溺れ、名声も地に墜ちる。酒に溺れ、雑誌の売文で糊口をしのぎ、ハリウッドのシナリオ執筆にも手を出す。『パット・ホビー 物語』は、そんなフィッツジェラルドの最後の連載。不遇をかこつ中年主人公に自らを投影した、悲哀に満ちた、ユーモアたっぷりのハリウッド撮影所物語。 フィッツジェラルド起死回生の短篇連作17篇。著者について
F.スコット・フィッツジェラルド Francis Scott (Key) Fitzgerald 1896-1940 ミネソタ州生まれ。第一次世界大戦後の「ロスト・ジェネレーション」の旗手。デビュー作『楽園のこちら側』で一躍時代の寵児となり、妻ゼルダとの派手やか な暮らしは、狂騒の1920年代「ジャズ・エイジ」の象徴。1925年、20世紀最高のアメリカ文学と称される『グレート・ギャツビー』発表。世界恐慌に 潮目が変わり、アルコール依存症、またゼルダの発病などに生活は破綻。短篇執筆、ハリウッドのシナリオ書きで糊口を凌ぐも、44歳心臓発作で急逝。De 1939 hasta su muerte en 1940, Fitzgerald se burló de sí mismo como escritorzuelo de Hollywood a través del personaje de Pat Hobby en una secuencia de 17 historias cortas recolectadas más tarde como The Pat Hobby stories, que obtuvo muy buenas críticas. Las historias de Pat Hobby se publicaron originalmente en Esquire entre enero de 1940 y julio de 1941, aun después de la muerte de Fitzgerald.
The Pat Hobby Stories are a collection of 17 short stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published by Arnold Gingrich of Esquire magazine between January 1940 and May 1941, and later collected in one volume in 1962. The last five installments in Esquire of The Pat Hobby Stories were published posthumously; Fitzgerald died on December 21, 1940.
Pat Hobby is a down-and-out screenwriter in Hollywood, once successful as "a good man for structure" during the silent age of cinema, but now reduced to an alcoholic hack hanging around the studio lot. Most stories find him broke and engaged in some ploy for money or a much-desired screen credit, but his antics usually backfire and end in further humiliation.
Drawing on his own experiences as a writer in Hollywood, Fitzgerald portrays Pat Hobby with self-mocking humor and nostalgia.
Arnold Gingrich, in an introduction to The Pat Hobby Stories, notes how, "while it would be unfair to judge this book as a novel, it would be less than fair to consider it as anything but a full-length portrait. It was as such that Fitzgerald worked on it, and would have wanted it presented in book form, after its original magazine publication. He thought of it as a comedy."
