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F. Scott Fitzgerald: Under the Influence

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While F. SCOTT FITZGERALD: UNDER THE INFLUENCE does not ignore Fitzgerald's life, the authors use it to in part explain why Fitzgerald had such a good grasp of the competing economic theories of his time. What makes this book significant, however, is that the authors' primary purpose is to establish that Fitzgerald's works reveal that he "possessed a boldness of intellectual grasp that extends into the economic realm."

Just how much of Thorsten Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class is reflected in The Great Gatsby as well as in other works, for example, is thoroughly detailed. And the significance of Gatsby "look[ing] with vacant eyes through a copy of [Henry] Clay's Economics while at Nick's house is illuminating.

Perhaps it required such authors as one who has written a book on Wall Street capitalism as well as a novel and an economics professor who teaches interdisciplinary studies to give literature lovers further insight into Fitzgerald/his works and to convince those who see him as "merely" an intuitive wordsmith that "Fitzgerald deserves more intellectual credit than he received at the time or since."