May Day

[Dave Monroe]

"May Day," Fitzgerald's first great
novelette--published during his first year as a
professional writer--appeared in July 1920. Fitzgerald
presumably sold it directly to Smart Set editors H. L.
Mencken and George Jean Nathan without offering it to
The Saturday Evening Post, or any other magazine,
because the material was too strong or realistic for
the slicks. "May Day" was the most successful work
inspired by Fitzgerald's temporary interest in the
school of naturalistic or deterministic fiction.
Although it was read by the people Fitzgerald wanted
to reach, The Smart Set paid him only $200 for this
masterpiece.

"May Day" drew upon Fitzgerald's feelings of failure
during the spring of 1919 when he was working for a
New York advertising agency. He provided this comment
when the story was collected in Tales of the Jazz Age
(1922):

"This somewhat unpleasant tale, published as a
novelette in the "Smart Set" in July, 1920, relates a
series of events which took place in the spring of the
previous year. Each of the three events made a great
impression upon me. In life they were unrelated,
except by the general hysteria of that spring which
inaugurated the Age of Jazz, but in my story I have
tried, unsuccessfully I fear, to weave them into a
pattern---a pattern which would give the effect of
those months in New York as they appeared to at least
one member of what was then the younger generation." 

http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/mayday/index.html

"May Day" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/mayday/mayday.html

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