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

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Sources

‘To Zelda March 19, 1940’, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda, p.331

‘Dear Mr Scribner, April 19, 1922’, A Life in Letters, p.56

April 1932 – June 1934, The Diary of H.L. Mencken, H.L. Mencken, Knopf, 1989, p.44, p.56, p.62

‘Silver Shirt Threat Against US Charged’, Los Angeles Evening Post, August 7, 1934, p.1

‘Star Spangled Fascists’, Stanley High, Saturday Evening Post, May 27, 1939, vol. 211, no. 48; Jeff Nilsson, Saturday Evening Post, March 10, 2012

‘Two of Pelley’s Aides Arrested’ Asheville Citizen Times, May 24, 1934, p.1

After the Good Gay Times; Asheville, Summer of ’35, A Season with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tony Buttitta, Viking Press, 1974, pp.83-84.

Ibid, p.78

Ibid, p.31

‘Headquarters and Founder of Silver Shirts’, Asheville Citizen, April 29, 1934, p, 1, p.2, p.3, p.6

Some Kind of Epic Grandeur, Matthew J. Bruccoli, p.317, p.474

Foreword, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Colonial and Historic Homes of Maryland, Donn Swann, Etchcrafters Art Guild, 1939.

‘Author’s House’, Esquire, July 1936, p.40, p.138

‘For Revolution’, V.F. Calverton, John Day Publishing, 1932.

Ibid, pp.81-82

A Southern life: Letters of Paul Green, 1916-1981, University of North Carolina Press, 1994, pp.192-193. Paul Green, one of Boyd’s closest friends, knew Buttitta and Abernethy in Chapel Hill.

The Liberation of American Literature, V. F. Calverton, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932, p.37

‘Dear Max, March 11, 1935‘, Letters of, p.264

‘Dear Scott, May 1932, Max Perkins, May 1932, Dear Scott, Dear Max, p.175

‘Intimate Bookshop, Offers’, Chappel Hill Weekly, July 10, 1931, p.5

Cerf, Bennett Alfred, 1898-1972. 12 TLS to Contempo, 1931-1934. Container 1.8, Contempo Collection 1925-1945, Harry Ransom Center.

Contempo, James Joyce Issue, February 13, 1934, vol. III, no.13

‘Dear Mr Cerf, August 29, 1932, Correspondence, p.296; ‘Dear Max, April 30, 1932, Life in Letters, p.218

Cerf, Bennett Alfred, 1898-1972. 12 TLS to Contempo, 1931-1934. Container 1.8, Contempo Collection 1925-1945, Harry Ransom Center. A special thanks to Aileen Thong for assisting in this search and for the many helpful suggestions.

Frustratingly, Andrew B. Myer’s ‘I Am Used To Being Dunned’, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Modern Library only starts with a telegram from Scott to The Modern Library in June 1934, sometime after the deal had been struck. He appears to have been asking permission from his publisher, Scribner’s since the summer of 1932, shortly after his arrival in Baltimore.

Calverton, Victor Francis, 1900-1940. 4 TLS, 6 TLI to Contempo, 1931-1932; Container 1.8, Calverton, Victor Francis, 1900-1940. TLS to A. J. Buttitta at Contempo, 13 February 1933. Container 1.8, Contempo Collection 1925-1945, Harry Ransom Center.

After the Good Gay Times; Asheville, Summer of ’35, A Season with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tony Buttitta, Viking Press, 1974, pp.83-84. The practice of hiring “dollar men” emerged during wartime when the US government needed expertise from the private sector to organize and oversee wartime production.

‘A Summer with F. Scott Fitzgerald’, Laura Guthrie Hearne, Esquire, March 1964, p.160 ; ‘Mrs Laura Millar Hearne Dies, Expert on Fitzgerald’, Asheville Citizen Times, November 20, 1973, p.15. Arnold Gingrich published extracts from her diary talking about her time with Scott in Esquire Magazine, December 1964. In 1919 Laura married William Colden Guthrie, Secretary of the International YMCA. Charlotte psychic Ray Hiat claimed that Laura had been the first person to put astrology in the newspapers in the US, and was a talented psychic herself. She featured in his short story, Fate In Her Hands.

‘The Inside Story, Wall Street Financiers Plan Fascist Coup’, New York Times, January 28, 1935, p.7; America Faces the Barricades, John L. Spivak, Covici Friede, July, 1935; ‘Plotting the American Pogroms’, The Producer News, January 4, 1935, p.2

The plot against Roosvelt has gone by several different names including the Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch

William Dudley Pelley, Door to Revelation, William Dudley Pelley, The Foundation Fellowship, Asheville, 1936.

‘W. D. Pelley to Start Soon on World Tour’, Rutland Daily Herald, April 30, 1918, p.2

Foreign Missions Conference Of North America, January 15-17, 1918, NY. Millar served as Secretary of the United Missions Committee. Also served as secretary International Committee Y. M. C. A, in charge of Army and Navy work; general secretary of the Layman’s Missionary Movement; secretary New York Federation of Churches.

‘My Seven Minutes in Eternity’, William Dudley Pelley, American Magazine, March 1929, pp.7-9, pp.139-144

‘Millar to Lecture’, The Morning Astorian, June 22, 1905, p.2; Washington Post, June 18, 1905, p.2; A World of Crisis and Progress: The American YMCA in Japan, 1890-1930, Jon Thares Davidann, Lehigh University Press, 1998

‘William Dudley Pelley in Race for President’, Asheville Citizen Times, September 11, 1935, p.7

‘From Arnold Gingrich, Late 1934’, Correspondence, pp. 396-397

The Crack Up, F . Scott Fitzgerald, Esquire, February 1, 1936, pp.41-42, p.164

Gingrich had initially published two items written by Zelda and polished by Scott, The second of these, Auction – Model came with self-explanatory tagline, “Light-hearted housekeepers take an inventory after fifteen years of hard earning and easy spending.” (Esquire, July 1934).

‘Famous Author Visiting in City’, Asheville Citizen Times, July 21, 1935, p1-2.

‘An Appeal to Progressives’, Edmund Wilson, The New Republic, January 14, 1931, LXV

After the Good Gay Times; Asheville, Summer of ’35, A Season with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tony Buttitta, Viking Press, 1974, pp.84-85.

‘Dear Max, February 26, 1935’, Dear Scott, Dear Max, p.217

‘Thomas Boyd, CP Candidate Dies’, Daily Worker, NY, January 29, 1935, p.2

It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis, October, 1935

The Four Seasons of Success, Budd Schulberg, Doubleday, 1972, p.31

The Thirties, Edmund Wilson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980, p.403, p.415

Far Side of Paradise, Mizener, p.225. Zelda had written to Maxwell Perkins in 1932 saying that “the community communist comes round and tells them about a kind of Luna Park Eutopia.”

‘Recollections of F. Scott Fitzgerald’, Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual, ed. Matthew J. Broccoli, 1975, pp.133-39. Scott arranged for Minnie Sayre to see a local medium during his stay.

‘Scott Fitzgeralds to spend winter here writing books’, Montgomery Advertiser, October 8, 1931.

The Far Side of Paradise, Arthur Mizener, 1951, p.234

‘To Scott, February-March 1932’, Dear Scott/Dearest Zelda, p.152

‘The Silver Shirts’, Jean Burton, The Modern Monthly, February 1934, vol. VIII, no.1

‘American Fascism in Embryo’, The New Republic, Dec 27, 1933, vol. LLXVII, no. 995, p.186

‘Crazy Like a Fox, Pelley of the Silver Shirts’, The New Republic, April 18, 1934, pp.264-266

‘The Silver Shirts’, Jean Burton, The Modern Monthly, Vol. VIII, No.1, February 1934, p.18. Burton was born in Abernethy, Saskatchewan in 1905 and died in Los Angeles in 1952. She was the author of a number of plays and several celebrated biographies. Burton was co-founder of the modernist literary magazine, The Canadian Mercury. She also contributed articles at this time to the Catholic propagandist news and culture magazine, The Commonweal. After completing her BA in history she obtained a Masters in Economics at the University of Alberta. She came to Long Island and New York in the early 1930s to work on her play Left Turn.

‘Plan Lecture at Centre’, Harrisburg Telegraph, March 6, 1935, p.4

Anatolii Vinogradov served as head of the library department of the People’s Compressiat of Education.

Letters from editors of The Modern Monthly, Box 9 Group 162, F1, Mizener, Arthur, Yale Special Collections of American Literature manuscript miscellany. Waldo McNutt’s brother Russell would work with Kellex on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge and be accused of spying for the Soviet.

V.F. Calverton papers, Rosemary Mizener, 1937, The Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room for Rare Books and Manuscripts, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books, The New York Public Library

‘Favor Study of Communism & Fascism’, Boston Globe, January 24, 1935, p.21

‘Dear George, March 25, 1935, Correspondence of, p.406

‘The Other Side of Paradise, Scott Fitzgerald’, Michel Mok, New York Post, September 25, 1936, p.1

‘Magazine Editor Testifies German Secret Police Set Up Unit for Propaganda’, New York Times, October 7, 1938, p.1, p.18. Gingrich maintained that he had been actively investigating the Silver Shirt Legion of Fascists of America headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina. Zelda would attend the Highland Hospital here for treatment and Scott spent much of his time here during the 1935-1937 period after pursuing treatment for TB.

College of One, Sheilah Graham, Penguin, 1966, p.53; ‘Anti-Nazi League Will Celebrate Anniversary’, Hollywood Citizen News, August 5, 1937, p.12. She refers to Cocoanut Grove which was at the Ambassador Hotel.

‘US Acts Slowly in Applying Neutrality Law To War Crisis’, Asheville Times, June 1, 1937, p.9

Hollywood’s Spies: The Undercover Surveillance of Nazis in Los Angeles, Laura B Rosenzweig, NYU Press, 2018, pp.53-54, pp.154-156. The organizer of the group was Chicago lawyer, Leon L. Lewis. The investigative reporter John Spivak may have been the common link between Lewis and Esquire/Ken publisher, David A Smart, both from Chicago.

‘Pat Hobby’s Christmas Wish’, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Esquire Magazine, January 1940, p.45, 171, 172. Came with the tagline, ‘The First in a series of stories featuring Pat Hobby, who was hot stuff when the movies were dumb.’

‘Dearest Sara, March 1932’, Letters of, p.444

‘Nazis Seeking to Halt Mad Dog of Europe’, The Jewish Press, October 27, 1933, p.2

Celluloid Soldiers: The Warner Bros, Campaign against Nazism, Michael E. Birdwell, New York University Press, 1999, pp.53-54

‘It Can’t Happen Here at Cost of $200, 000’, Commercial Appeal, February 23, 1936.

‘Three Comrades’, Sunday Worker, March 20, 1938, p.13

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Screenplay for Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli, Southern Illinois University Press

‘Reviews, Three Comrades’, The Spokane Press, June 20, 1938, p.2

‘Three Comrades’, The Daily Worker, June 6, 1938, p.7

‘James Boyd’, Greensboro, North Carolina, March 1, 1964.

Hearings Before A Special Committee On Un-American Activities House Of Representatives Seventy-fifth Congress Third Session On H. Res. 282 Volume 1, August 12 , 13, 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19, 20, 22 , And 23, 1938 At Washington , D. C. United States, Government Printing Office, p.1222. Pelley was jailed for 15 years in August 1942 for Nazi collusion.

‘F. Scott Fitzgerald Theme of Calverton Before Writer Club’, Standard Star (NY), November 25, 1936, p.4.

‘Would Organize Revolutionist Party’, The Evening Sun, Baltimore, February 15, 1934, p.12. Scott’s first biographer, Arthur Mizener, would contribute reviews to Calverton’s The Modern Monthly as early as 1936.

‘Perspectives of American Marxism’, Leon Trotsky, Modern Monthly, Vol. 7 No. 2, March 1933.

‘For Revolution’, V.F. Calverton, John Day Publishing, 1932.

‘If America Should Go Communist’, Leon Trotsky, Liberty, March 23, 1935, Vol. XII, No. XII. It was written in August 1934.

‘Dear Scottie, February 1940, Life in Letters, p.356

‘If America Should Go Communist’, Leon Trotsky, Fourth International, March-April 1951, Vol. XII, pp.54-57

‘Tender Is the Night’, C. Hartley Grattan, The Modern Monthly, 8, July 1934, pp.375-377

‘Where Angels Dared To Tread’, V. F. Calverton, Bob Merrill Company, 1941, p.17; ‘Socialism Stiffens Faith of Writers’, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 9, 1937, p.9

‘Fate of the Idealist in the American Dream’, New York Times, March 5, 1933, p.1; American Dream, George O’Neil, Samuel French, New York, 1933.

‘For Revolution’, V.F Calverton, The John Day Pamphlets, No.15, 1932

‘American Dream’, George O’Neil, Guild Theatre’, The Modern Monthly, Vol. VII, No. 3, April 1933.

‘The Coming American Revolution’ (advertisement), Labor Action, November 1, 1934, p.2. The institutes were held at the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union HQ in Union Square.

The Epic of America, John Truslow Adams, Little, Brown and Company, 1931

The Crack Up, Esquire, 1936.

‘The Triumph of Failure’, William Troy, Accent 6, Autmn, 1945,

‘Preface’, Lionel Trilling, The Great Gatsby, New Directions, 1942.

‘Mark Twain – Social Revolutionist’, V. F Calverton, The Modern Monthly, April 1936, Vol. IX, No. 9, p.28

‘To V.F. Calverton, October 17, 1934, Correspondence of .., p.387

‘How we misread The Great Gatsby’, Sarah Churchwell, The New Statesman, January 2025, https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2025/01/how-we-misread-the-great-gatsby