"The Hotel Child"

from: The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli (Scribners, 1989) Pages 598-615

Hôtel Hotel Des Trois Couronnes

I decided to go ahead and read another short story last night. "The Hotel Child" was published in January 1931 (Saturday Evening Post) and is another Tender cluster story dealing with Americans living in Europe.

This time F. Scott told his agent that, "Practically the whole damn thing is true, bizarre as it seems." One of the things critics baulk at his writing about is how things aren't "creative" enough because F. Scott draws so much from his own life and the lives around him.

I'm sorry, critics. That's how "we" do. (Notice I called myself a writer). Most fiction is really faction (fiction based on facts, thank you very much Laura Zigman). Maybe it's not cleverly disguised enough for you, but that's how it works.

So the story revolves around a radiantly beautiful Jewess who is celebrating her 18th birthday in a grand hotel. We find out that this has been her existence for the last four years as she as been traveling with her mother and brother throughout various countries.

"Watching the dancing there would be a gallery of Englishwomen of a certain age, with neckbands, dyed hair and faces powered pinkish gray; a gallery of American women of a certain age, with snowy-white transformations, black dresses and lips of cherry red."

Now the story wasn't that fascinating for me. I loved reading the original Rosemary (from Tender is the Night) or her counterpart--whatever you'd like to call it.

Fifi is pursued by many men, she keeps getting kicked out of the hotel bar because of her age, and wants to go to Paris to study at the Sorbonne.

"Didn't evening sometimes end on a high note and not fade out vaguely in bars? After ten o'clock every night she felt she was the only real being in a colony of ghosts, that she was surrounded by utterly intangible figures who retreated whenever she stretched out her hand."

Wow! The passage above has inspired me to write a short story, all on its own!

Alcohol mentioned: Spanish wine & whisky-and-soda

There is a suspicious Count, money goes missing, someone sets the hotel bar on fire, and a funny saying is repeated several times--it's a quick read but falls flat for me by the end. I would rank it last of the four I have read thus far.

~~J