Free Republic

Legend has it that the publication of The Great Gatsby pushed Ernest Hemingway into a deep depression. Hemingway is supposed to have confided to friends that he found it difficult to write after reading Gatsby because it had been his dream to write The Great American Novel and Fitzgerald had beaten him to it. Now I know how he felt. My dream was less Homeric than Hemingway’s. I figured with my talent, I needed to set the bar lower. Setting it on the ground seemed appropriate, but I was afraid if the bar were lying in the dirt, others might...