Pat Hobby Stories

Unique collection of short storiesA Hollywood hack who has fallen on hard times since the end of the Silent Era, Pat Hobby spends his time hanging out in the studio lot attempting to devise schemes – such as pressing his secretary for blackmail material against a studio executive – to get more work and earn on-screen credits. Oblivious to his own shortcomings and filled with feelings of self-importance, he embarks on a course towards ever-increasing humiliation, suffering setbacks on both the professional and romantic fronts.A vivid account of Hollywood and its politics and hierarchies, these stories – which draw from Fitzgerald’s own travails as a screenwriter – were first printed in Esquire, although they were written with a view to being published as a cohesive volume.