In a well-known 1929 letter to Ernest Hemingway, he described himself as an “old whore” whom the Post now paid a premium “$4,000. a screw” because “she’s mastered the 40 positions [when] in her youth one was enough.” For Fitzgerald, the short story was a means to an end: it allowed him to finance his novel writing, which he considered the preeminent art form. Yet as his graphic metaphor suggests, he also resented the story market for enticing him to prostitute his talent. To command courtesan prices, he had to know how to his please his audience – and that meant recycling familiar themes, employing stock characters and scenarios, and tugging the heartstrings.