over her head. Despite her bulk her voice was very soft and girlish and even after I put my iPod on I could still hear her saying periodically uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.
For a long time I stayed just beneath the surface of sleep, and then all of a sudden I dropped into a nightmare, as if I had fallen into one of those deep trout pools in Hemingwayâs imaginary rivers. Anex-boyfriend â for what itâs worth also an alcoholic â was about to hang himself. I woke abruptly, my heart thumping. It was very late. I looked out of the window. We were travelling through hill country. The Blue Ridge Mountains? I guessed from the time that we must be nearing Clemson, the home, according to the itinerary Iâd practically memorised, of one of the two men whoâd resigned the office of vice president. Christ, I was tired. My skin felt like itâd been put on wrong: back to front or inside out.
Eventually I got up to use the bathroom. The carriage was full of sleeping bodies curled up under coats and blankets. Couples huddled together, their faces almost touching, and I saw a woman feeding a tiny baby, the only other person awake in the whole coach. Itâs not often, in the privileged West at least, that one finds oneself in a room full of sleepers. Hospitals, boarding schools, homeless shelters: none of them places I much frequented. There was something almost eerie about it, like those Henry Moore drawings of people sheltering in the stations of the London Underground during the Blitz. They lie in rows and could be sleeping, though their boneless immobility makes one wonder if the platform hasnât been turned into an impromptu mortuary.
I went back to my seat and looked out into the dark again. The train was following the trajectory of Fitzgeraldâs fall through time. After Baltimore he went to Asheville, North Carolina in 1935 to recover from what he was told was an attack of tuberculosis. He stayed in the Grove Park Inn, a vast, rambling resort hotel. It must have been somewhere in that bulk of hills, in the clean thin air that was supposed to be good for damaged lungs. That summer he made friends with Laura Guthrie, a palmist at the hotel who he employed as somethingbetween a companion and a secretary. She kept a diary of the season and much of it ended up, by way of an essay in Esquire, in Scott Fitzgerald, Andrew Turnbullâs soft-hearted, thoughtful biography.
Turnbull was the son of Fitzgeraldâs landlord at La Paix. He was about Scottieâs age, and had the advantage over other biographers in not only having known Fitzgerald, but also in having seen what a sweet man he could be, how compassionate and honourable, how exceptionally gifted and hard-working. People used to speak of someone being refined by suffering, and thatâs the sense one carries away from Turnbullâs account. Unlike his subject, he also seems a notably reliable witness, acknowledging the failings without ever seeming to smack his lips.
He describes Fitzgerald in his room at the Grove Park Inn making endless lists âof cavalry officers, athletes, cities, popular tunes. Later, he realised that he had been witnessing the disintegration of his own personality and likened the sensation to that of a man standing at twilight on a deserted range with an empty rifle in his hands and the targets down.â The images are drawn from Fitzgeraldâs own account in âThe Crack-upâ, but somehow have more impact here. At the same time he was trying to write stories to keep his family afloat, though the old easy facility had long since gone. Not cheap, having a wife in hospital, and a daughter in private school. He was also trying to stop drinking, for the sake of his lungs if nothing else, though what that meant in practice was the usual heroic consumption of beer.
After a while he lapsed, returning to hard liquor. One day Laura found him working in his room swaddled in a thick wool sweater over pyjamas,
For a long time I stayed just beneath the surface of sleep, and then all of a sudden I dropped into a nightmare, as if I had fallen into one of those deep trout pools in Hemingwayâs imaginary rivers. Anex-boyfriend â for what itâs worth also an alcoholic â was about to hang himself. I woke abruptly, my heart thumping. It was very late. I looked out of the window. We were travelling through hill country. The Blue Ridge Mountains? I guessed from the time that we must be nearing Clemson, the home, according to the itinerary Iâd practically memorised, of one of the two men whoâd resigned the office of vice president. Christ, I was tired. My skin felt like itâd been put on wrong: back to front or inside out.
Eventually I got up to use the bathroom. The carriage was full of sleeping bodies curled up under coats and blankets. Couples huddled together, their faces almost touching, and I saw a woman feeding a tiny baby, the only other person awake in the whole coach. Itâs not often, in the privileged West at least, that one finds oneself in a room full of sleepers. Hospitals, boarding schools, homeless shelters: none of them places I much frequented. There was something almost eerie about it, like those Henry Moore drawings of people sheltering in the stations of the London Underground during the Blitz. They lie in rows and could be sleeping, though their boneless immobility makes one wonder if the platform hasnât been turned into an impromptu mortuary.
I went back to my seat and looked out into the dark again. The train was following the trajectory of Fitzgeraldâs fall through time. After Baltimore he went to Asheville, North Carolina in 1935 to recover from what he was told was an attack of tuberculosis. He stayed in the Grove Park Inn, a vast, rambling resort hotel. It must have been somewhere in that bulk of hills, in the clean thin air that was supposed to be good for damaged lungs. That summer he made friends with Laura Guthrie, a palmist at the hotel who he employed as somethingbetween a companion and a secretary. She kept a diary of the season and much of it ended up, by way of an essay in Esquire, in Scott Fitzgerald, Andrew Turnbullâs soft-hearted, thoughtful biography.
Turnbull was the son of Fitzgeraldâs landlord at La Paix. He was about Scottieâs age, and had the advantage over other biographers in not only having known Fitzgerald, but also in having seen what a sweet man he could be, how compassionate and honourable, how exceptionally gifted and hard-working. People used to speak of someone being refined by suffering, and thatâs the sense one carries away from Turnbullâs account. Unlike his subject, he also seems a notably reliable witness, acknowledging the failings without ever seeming to smack his lips.
He describes Fitzgerald in his room at the Grove Park Inn making endless lists âof cavalry officers, athletes, cities, popular tunes. Later, he realised that he had been witnessing the disintegration of his own personality and likened the sensation to that of a man standing at twilight on a deserted range with an empty rifle in his hands and the targets down.â The images are drawn from Fitzgeraldâs own account in âThe Crack-upâ, but somehow have more impact here. At the same time he was trying to write stories to keep his family afloat, though the old easy facility had long since gone. Not cheap, having a wife in hospital, and a daughter in private school. He was also trying to stop drinking, for the sake of his lungs if nothing else, though what that meant in practice was the usual heroic consumption of beer.
After a while he lapsed, returning to hard liquor. One day Laura found him working in his room swaddled in a thick wool sweater over pyjamas,
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