William Faulkner

• In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald published “The Great Gatsby.” Four years later, Ursula Parrott published her first novel, “Ex-Wife.” I probably read “The Great Gatsby” a dozen times between junior high school and my late 20s.
• But I had never even heard of Ursula Parrott or her 1929 bestseller until I stumbled across a screenplay adaption of one of Parrott’s short stories.
• I acquired a used copy of “Ex-Wife” on eBay and soon realized that Ursula Parrott was not unknown; she was just forgotten.

Greeted by mixed reviews

• They’re set in New York and saturated with the energy, language and spirit of the time.
• Both garnered mixed reviews, deemed by many critics as entertaining and of the moment but not great literature.
• At first, “Ex-Wife” was far more successful than “Gatsby,” blasting through a dozen printings and selling over 100,000 copies.
• It was translated into multiple languages and reprinted in paperback editions through the late 1940s.
• Meanwhile, “The Great Gatsby” went through a mere two printings totaling less than 24,000 copies, not all of which sold.

Art imitates life

• There is a similar form of male chauvinism at work in the way that Parrott’s writing was often treated by critics during her lifetime.
• Many described her books and short stories as romantic or melodramatic, fit only for consumption by women.

Gatsby’s boosters

• I am convinced that “Ex-Wife” deserves a place alongside Fitzgerald’s novel in classrooms and in the hands of a new generation of readers based on the merits of its style and contents.
• “The Great Gatsby” owes its resuscitation from obscurity in the 1940s to the efforts of prominent male critics and scholars – and even to the American military.
• Fitzgerald had important friends and admirers, among them the esteemed literary critic Edmund Wilson, who was instrumental in the republication of “Gatsby” in 1941.

Making the case for ‘Ex-Wife’

• “The Great Gatsby”‘s ascension from obscurity to ubiquity is only one example of how Parrott’s book was passed over.
• “Ex-Wife” and William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” were marketed alongside each other by publishers Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith.
• Faulkner biographer Carl Rollyson observes that Faulkner’s book sold “less than a tenth” as many copies as Parrott’s.
• Imagine what a different story “Gatsby” would have been had the reader seen the world through Daisy’s eyes?