Letter for Budd Schulberg’s What Makes Sammy Run?
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
December 13, 1940
Dear Bennett Cerf:
I told Budd I was going to write you a word about his novel with permission to quote if you wanted. I read it through in one night. It is a grand book, utterly fearless and with a great deal of beauty side by side with the most bitter satire. Such things are in Hollywood—and Budd reports them with fine detachment. Except for its freshness and the inevitable challenge of a new and strong personality it doesn’t read like a first novel at all.
It is full of excellent little vignettes—the “extra girl” or whatever she is and her attitude on love, and the diverse yet identical attitude of the two principal women on Sammy. Especially toward the end it gets the feeling of Hollywood with extraordinary vividness. Altogether I congratulate you on publishing this fine book and I hope it has all the success it deserves.
Sincerely,
(Signed) F. Scott Fitzgerald
Published in Budd Schulberg. What Makes Sammy Run? book (New York: Random House, 1941, dust jacket).
Not illustrated.