+ − Boston Transcript p4 N 6 ’20 250w
“Here are to be found originality and variety, with imaginativeness of the exceptional order that needs not to seek remote, untrodden paths, but plays upon scenes and people within the radius of ordinary life.”
+ Cath World 112:268 N ’20 130w
“The substance of the eight stories in his volume is in harmony with his new manner. They have a rather ghastly rattle of movement that apes energy and a hectic straining after emotion that apes intensity. The surface is unnaturally taut; the substance beneath is slack and withered as by a premature old age. In ‘This side of paradise’ there was both gold and dross. Instead of wringing his art, in Mr Hergesheimer’s fine expression, free of all dross, Mr Fitzgerald proceeded to cultivate it and to sell it to the Saturday Evening Post. Why write good books? You have to sell something like five thousand copies to earn the price of one story.”
− Nation 111:330 S 18 ’20 380w
“Not the most superficial reader can fail to recognize Mr Fitzgerald’s talent and genius.”
+ N Y Times p24 S 26 ’20 530w
“‘Head and shoulders’ has a twist at the end that is truly O. Henryish. So does ‘Bernice bobs her hair.’ We pick these two as the best.”
+ Outlook 126:238 O 6 ’20 60w
Reviewed by Sibyl Vane