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presents
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W I L L I A M E L L I O
T H A Z E L G R O V E
Tuesday, May 21, 2024,
5:30-8:30pm Central
Live! in The Lounge at Iwan Ries,
19 S. Wabash Av, 2d Floor.
Cocktails and cigars at 5:30pm, with the
presentation to begin at 6:00 and last
about 45 minutes,
followed by a very active Q&A
session, more cocktails, then eclectic
cocktail talk.
$60
includes lounge fees, two premium
cigars, premium open bar, and snacks.
Dessert & tea sponsored by
Cigar Society member Cathy Hareas.
Event offered via Zoom for
out-of-towners. Contact Curtis Tuckey
for the Zoom link.
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Writing Gatsby
is William Hazelgrove's compelling
account of what led F. Scott
Fitzgerald to write what is
considered by many to be the
Greatest American Novel, The
Great Gatsby. This includes
Fitzgerald's desire to move away
from the realism of his two previous
novels and to create a work of art.
He also wanted to tell a stylized
version of many of the events that
shaped his own life. "The whole idea
of Gatsby", Fitzgerald later
explained, "is the unfairness of a
poor young man not being able to
marry a girl with money. This theme
comes up again and again because I
lived it."
The Great Gatsby has sold
25 million copies worldwide and
sells 500,000 copies annually. The
book has been made into three movies
and produced for the theater.
Yet, the story of how The Great
Gatsby came to be written has
not been told except as embedded
chapters of much larger biographies.
This story is one of heartbreak,
infidelity, struggle, alcoholism,
financial hardship, and one man’s
perseverance to be faithful to the
raw diamond of his talent in
circumstances that would have
crushed others. The story of the
writing of The Great Gatsby
is a story in itself. |
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Copies of Writing Gatsby
will be available for sale at the event
(cash or credit), and Mr. Hazelgrove will be
delighted to inscribe your copy.
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Rick Kogan, in his
review of Writing Gatsby in
the Chicago Tribune (Jan 25, 2023), wrote:
Hazelgrove,
as I have written before, brings a
novelist’s artfulness to his work,
imbuing it with narrative force and
enlivening and energizing his deep
research. [He] is a sociable historian,
writing in a style closer to breezy
conversation than droning academia, and
is not at all reluctant to share his
enthusiasm for his subjects. He has done
this in previous books about such
colorful characters as Teddy Roosevelt,
Al Capone, Edith Wilson, the Wright
Brothers and Sally Rand.
In his latest, he writes
in his preface that Gatsby is
“the greatest work of American fiction
the world has ever known.” He then gives
readers a typically well-researched and
smartly written story that focuses on
the 11 months between the summer of
1924, when Fitzgerald began writing his
novel, and April 10, 1925, when it was
published. You get a fine look at the
writer before and after that writing
interlude, on a booze-fueled journey
from “one party to another and one hotel
to another,” and will cringe at the
self-destructive antics of Fitzgerald
and his wife Zelda, a pair who came to
define the Jazz Age in all its raucous
energy.
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William Elliott Hazelgrove is the
National Bestselling author of ten novels
and twelve narrative nonfiction titles. His
books have received starred reviews in
Publisher Weekly Kirkus, Booklist, Book of
the Month Selections, ALA Editors Choice
Awards Junior Library Guild Selections,
Literary Guild Selections, History Book Club
Selections and optioned for the movies. He
was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence
where he wrote in the attic of Ernest
Hemingway’s birthplace. He has written
articles and reviews for USA Today, The
Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications
and has been featured on NPR All Things
Considered. The New York Times, LA
Times, Chicago Tribune, CSPAN, USA Today
have all covered his books with features.
His book Madam President The Secret
Presidency of Edith Wilson is
currently in development with Starthrower
Entertainment. Henry Knox's Noble
Train was awarded the Distinguished
Book Award by The Colonial Society of
America.
Mr. Hazelgrove is well known to the Cigar
Society for his previous talks: The
Race to Save the Titanic, Sally
Rand: American Sex Symbol; Henry
Knox's Noble Train; Wright
Brothers, Wrong Story: How Wilbur Wright
Solved the Problem
of Manned Flight; Forging
a President: How the Wild West Created
Teddy Roosevelt; Al
Capone and the 1933 World's Fair;
and Madam President: The
Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson.
Follow him at
http://www.williamhazelgrove.com
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Cigar Society
Signature Cocktails, by Dan
Gardiner
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Cigar
Society member and mixmaster
Dan Gardiner will be
constructing a line of signature
cocktails appropriate
to each of our upcoming
events. For this event, it
is the gin rickey,
which figures prominently in
Chapter 7 of The Great
Gatsby, and which
Gatsby and Daisy take in
"long, greedy swallows."
Dan entertained the Cigar
Society in August 2020 with
My
Life as a YouTube Star
during Lockdown: How I
Produced 50 Videos in 3
Months. You can check
out his unparalleled YouTube
channel at Dan's
Bar.
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About
the
Cigar Society of Chicago
ONE OF THE OLDEST
AND greatest traditions of the
city clubs of Chicago is the
discussion of intellectual,
social, legal, artistic,
historical, scientific, musical,
theatrical, and philosophical
issues in the company of educated,
bright, and appropriately
provocative individuals, all under
the beneficent influence of
substantial amounts of tobacco and
spirits. The Cigar
Society of Chicago
embraces this tradition and
extends it with its Informal
Smokers, University
Series lectures, and Cigar
Society Dinners, in which
cigars, and from time to time
pipes and cigarettes, appear as an
important component of our version
of the classical symposium. To be
included in the Cigar Society's
mailing list, write to the
secretary at
curtis.tuckey@logicophilosophicus.org
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