Against The Current by Frances Kroll Ring
F. Scott Fitzgerald's Final Months in Hollywood
Nov 7, 2009
Few American authors have been written about as extensively as F. Scott Fitzgerald. The writer who coined the term Jazz Age and wrote The Great Gatsby (as well as four other novels and over 150 short stories) has been the subject of numerous biographies since his 1940 death. Unfortunately, he did not live long enough—passing away at age 44—to write his own autobiography.
Gatsby Author's Final Years in Hollywood
Despite the dozens of books detailing Scott Fitzgerald’s life, and the many more addressing his writing, for decades very little had been written or known about his final couple of years in Hollywood.From the late 30’s through his death in December 1940, the author lived a quiet and fairly meager life taking on freelance scriptwriting jobs for the film studios and attempting to finish his fifth novel, The Last Tycoon.
During this period, Fitzgerald hired 19 year-old Frances Kroll through a secretarial agency to be his personal assistant, a job that required a little bit of everything, from typing up drafts to making him lunch to running errands. Taking its title from the famous last lines of The Great Gatsby, Kroll Ring’s Against The Current details those last 20 months of the famous author’s life.
Secretary Frances Kroll Had Exclusive Access to Fitzgerald's Work
What makes Against The Current a fascinating book is the fact that, during these final months of Fitzgerald’s life, only Sheila Graham (Fitzgerald’s British gossip columnist girlfriend) and the author herself had daily contact with Fitzgerald. And while Graham’s book Beloved Infidel showed the social side of his last days, only Kroll is able to detail his final working days, that piece of his life that had been missing from all of the previous biographies.
Young Frances Kroll had heard of F. Scott Fitzgerald when she arrived at his modest Encino home for an interview, but she’d not read any of his novels (only a couple of popular magazine stories). Her story of that interview, as the infamous author tests her knowledge of his alcoholic reputation, and her trustworthiness, may alone be worth the price of the book.
Against The Current, however, is anything but a celebrity dirt-dishing book. What quickly emerges is the young secretary’s deep admiration for Fitzgerald, a respect borne of his talent, his work ethic, and his kindheartedness.Yes, there is the occasional tale of, for instance, Kroll having to covertly get rid of gin bottle-filled burlap bags, but mostly this is the inside look at a once-famous author struggling mightily to produce one last work that will redeem and preserve his literary reputation.
Work on The Last Tycoon Ends With Fitzgerald's Sudden Death
Especially poignant are the stories of Fitzgerald’s insecurity in dealing with a summer visit by his college-aged daughter, and of his fully committed regime to finish The Last Tycoon even as his health fails. The growing friendship between author and secretary and their teamwork directed at that outcome were both abruptly severed as Scott died suddenly on a pre-Christmas Saturday afternoon in 1940.
The final third of Against The Current deals with the odd situation of the young secretary’s having to wrap up all of Fitzgerald’s unfinished business. With his wife Zelda in an asylum, and his few close friends in the East, the final arrangements, including transport of the body, lay to Frances Kroll. It’s a sad ending almost worthy of a Fitzgerald novel. This book is required reading for all serious students of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Ring, Frances Kroll. Against The Current, Donald S. Ellis Publisher, 1985, 160 pages. (ISBN: 0-88739-001-3)
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