May Day

May Day, Fitzgerald's first great novelette, mingles autobiographical details with events from contemporary history. In May 1919, after an interfraternity dance at Delmonico's, Fitzgerald was bounced out of the Fifty-ninth-Street Childs for a disturbance similar to the one created by Peter Himmel in the story. At the same time, the assault on the New York Trumpet by a mob of drunken soldiers parallels a raid on the socialist New York Call during the red scare of 1919. Like many of Fitzgeral...