With the Broadway musical version of “The Great Gatsby” playing this week at the Saenger Theatre, we take a closer look at author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s connection to New Orleans. The city’s place in literary history is well-known, as a home and inspiration to greats such as Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Anne Rice and more. However, Fitzgerald’s time here was brief and is likely not as well-known.
“For 40 days, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the extravagant party thrower and literary king of the Jazz Age, lived in New Orleans, unknown and unmarried. It was the last time he was either,” wrote James Hodge in a March 1981 Times-Picayune article. Fitzgerald stayed here for just over a month in January 1920, residing at 2900 Prytania St., in what was then a boarding house.
In a published collection of his letters, Fitzgerald wrote that he came to New Orleans for health reasons. In the 1981 article, biographer Arthur Mizener said that Fitzgerald started writing a novel in New Orleans called “Darling Hart.” But he decided to break it up and instead sell it as three smaller character stories…