In the 1930s, F. Scott Fitzgerald, suffering personal and professional decline, struggled for recognition as The Great Gatsby faded from memory. Amid Zelda’s worsening mental health and the rise of American fascism, Fitzgerald mingled with Marxist intellectuals and radicals in Asheville, North Carolina. Among his neighbours was the American fascist, William Dudley Pelley. But what was he doing there? This series of podcasts looks at Scott’s arrival in Asheville, his friendship with Tony Buttitta, V. F. Calverton and Arnold Gingrich, the editor of Esquire Magazine who investigated Pelley, and his eventual move to Hollywood to work on Three Comrades. It also looks at the recasting of The Great Gatsby as a Marxist allegory and an American Dream in crisis.

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Alan Sargeant, October 2025