"What a Handsome Pair!"

Master the 40: The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Published in the August 27, 1932, issue of the Saturday Evening Post, "What a Handsome Pair!" clearly reflects F. Scott Fitzgerald's dour view of marital relationships amid the relapse that took Zelda to the Phipps Clinic in Baltimore. The story of two couples, Stuart and Helen Oldhorne and Teddy and Betty Van Beck, "Pair!" insists that for men to enjoy domestic contentment they must pick wives who will not compete with them in their chosen métier. In other words, not exactly a feminist story! Fitzgerald perhaps exposed a little too much anger here that Zelda had completed her novel, Save Me the Waltz, in two months that spring while he was just then kicking Tender Is the Night into gear after seven years of delay. Beyond the gloomy portrait of marriage, the story is notable for weird elements: it is set a generation earlier than the author's own era, and there are some strange intimations of proto-Ice Storm couples' hanky panky---which makes its appearance in the conservative Post even more head-scratching. Not a great story---but a curious one!