Why have you read 'The Great Gatsby' but not Ursula Parrott’s 'Ex-Wife'?
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Wednesday, August 23, 2023
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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.
Key Points:
- 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?