F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of Minnesota’s most famous sons, though it’s hard to imagine any author less typically Minnesotan. I once visited some people who lived in the town house he once occupied, on St. Paul’s toney Summit Avenue.

Anyway, Robert J. Avrech, one of the consistently most interesting writers at Big Hollywood, posts about Fitzgerald’s sojourn in Hollywood today. Although he doesn’t agree entirely, he quotes the opinion of one of Fitzgerald’s friends, John Lee Mahin, who blamed at least part of the author’s implosion on political pressures from the film community’s burgeoning Communist movement.

His work was condemned, they said, and he believed them. He denounced himself even more harshly than his judges, accusing his work of being trivial and superficial.

“He actually told me he’s ashamed of The Great Gatsby,” John fairly snarled. “Those cursed Do-gooders… they’ve got him believing his work isn’t worth a tinkers damn just because he wasn’t waving a banner or marching in a picket line. They’ve destroyed him, as sure as God made little apples.”