MPR’s Bob Potter interviews Garrison Keillor about famed St. Paul author F. Scott Fitzgeald. Keillor discusses Fitzgerald’s work and connection to the Midwest.

Keillor hosts an event at the Fitzgerald Theater to celebrate the author’s 100th anniversary.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) 23 minutes now after seven o'clock F Scott Fitzgerald fans. This week are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the writers birth a host of authors including Jane Smiley Donald Hall Michael Dorris and others will Mark the occasion with readings other events include trolley tours of Fitzgerald's neighborhood. And st. Paul the unveiling of a postage stamp and the Airing of a two-part documentary on Fitzgerald's life right here on Minnesota Public Radio the week culminates Saturday night with A Prairie Home Companion Fitzgerald broadcast in just Afterward The Great Gatsby ball A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison. Keillor is overseeing all these events and is on the line now. Good morning

(00:00:37) Garrison. Good morning, Robert

(00:00:39) why make such a big fuss over Fitzgerald in the first place?

(00:00:44) Well, he's a great author and he's one of ours st. Paul is his home if he ever had one and it's not often you get a chance to honor an author. So we're going to grab this

(00:00:58) as I understand at the time of his death. With none of his books were in print is that right?

(00:01:02) I think they were in print. I think they were sitting in a warehouse in New Jersey and I believe that the only copies that had been sold were copies that Fitzgerald himself had bought

(00:01:19) what accounted for his turn around then

(00:01:24) it's complicated, but he had friends Edmund Wilson. Went to bat for him who edited the unfinished last novel The Last Tycoon and who put out the crack up those came out in the 40s. The first biography came out around 51. I'm sorry. I should have said he died in 1940 and he gradually came back so that when I was in college in the early 60s an English major Fitzgerald was considered to be be one of the three main American Writers of this Century along with Faulkner and Hemingway

(00:02:08) now, he never stayed in st. Paul for a very long period of time. I wonder how important the city is in his life and career.

(00:02:16) That's hard to say and interesting to speculate about I feel it was very important and though he was drawn as midwesterners particularly. Authors were back then drawn toward New York and then toward Paris. I think that he always considered himself a Midwestern ER at heart and he and he knew that he was and I think that his work was in the in the deepest sense was written for us in the

(00:02:51) midwest the assign some references to st. Paul and to his life growing up in his

(00:02:56) Works. No, he was not he was not an author whom whoever wrote sentimental or nostalgic Memoirs. He used his life in his fiction and his Saint Paul Years you'll find Described in the Bible do curly stories about a boy, but no he didn't he didn't he didn't look back perhaps because he didn't live long enough. He died at the age of 44 in your 40s. You're you you're not ready for

(00:03:34) that. We know that still young don't

(00:03:36) we

(00:03:38) now it's a popular perception that Fitzgerald didn't really like the Twin Cities all that. Well, is that true?

(00:03:45) I think It when he came back with with Zelda in 1921 for the birth of their child, he wrote a couple of disparaging lines in letters to friends about Saint Paul, but we've all disparaged Minnesota in private. Haven't we haven't you

(00:04:14) certain months of the year? Definitely? Yes, indeed. He was not a humorous writer was

(00:04:18) he? Oh, I think he is only equipped. I think that W he may not have set out to write comedy. I think that many of the stories are very very funny Bernice Bob's her hair and a lot of stories about young people Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the diamond as big as the Ritz. I think a lot of them were very

(00:04:43) funny. So you've got some material to work with to People the dose of humor. They expect on Saturday night.

(00:04:49) Oh, I think so though. The show will be very different one from our from our usual. It's devoted entirely to Fitzgerald Saint Paul chamber orchestra. Be there in place in music from the period, but it's a Fitzgerald show.

(00:05:03) Well Garrison. Thanks very much for joining us this morning. And thank you also for doing all this work on Fitzgerald bringing his memory

(00:05:08) back to us. Thank you Robert nice to talk to you

(00:05:11) Garrison Keillor host of A Prairie Home

(00:05:12) Companion.

(00:05:26) Programming on Minnesota Public Radio supported by Robins Captain Miller and Suri see a national law firm representing the legal interests of businesses and individuals in Minnesota and across the country and by Delta airlines flying daily nonstops through Cincinnati connection to Major business centers throughout North America and

(00:05:44) Europe.

(00:06:13) It's 29 minutes after seven. Perhaps you've heard the radio documentary now learn more about the story online face of Mercy face of hate is an in-depth profile of a Bosnian Serb fighter.