Porcelain and Pink

Master the 40: The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Just when you thought your stocking couldn't get any more stuffed this Christmas, we're slipping underneath your holly jolly to drop our second episode of season two. "Porcelain and Pink" appeared in the January 1920 issue of The Smart Set, one month before F. Scott Fitzgerald debuted in the Saturday Evening Post and two before the publication of This Side of Paradise. A charming trifle, "P&P" tells the story of a young flapper, Julie, luxuriating in a blue bathtub who teases a young literary beau by pretending to be her sister (the gentleman's girlfriend), Lois. Written as a one-act play, the slight (and we do mean slight) comedy reminds us that early in his career Fitzgerald was fond of cranking out fiction written in the form of a theater script. Our discussion takes us to the vaudeville halls where the story's tantalizing set-up (Julie is bathing au naturel, naturally) makes burlesque sense. Trying to find a theme here is like trying to snatch a floating bubble, but we do connect "Porcelain and Pink" to other, more significant stories from 1920 such as "Head and Shoulders" and "Bernice Bobs Her Hair." We also offer a history of the bathtub (!) and a long list of iconic bathing moments in art, music, and literature. Rub-a-dub-dub!