Gatsby in Connecticut: Talk on F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald with Author Richard Webb Jr.
Meet the Author of Boats Against the Current, Richard Webb, Jr. As a leading Fitzgerald academic has claimed “this is the most significant finding of the last half century in Fitzgerald scholarship.”
The Fitzgeralds lived a wild life of drinking, driving and endless partying while living in suburban Connecticut, where they were neighbors to a larger-than-life reclusive multi-millionaire, F.E. Lewis. It tells the real story behind the famous novel and its tragic hero, debunking the long-held belief that the book was solely inspired by the Fitzgeralds’ time in Great Neck, suggesting that Mr. Lewis was the true inspiration for the Great Gatsby.
About the Author
Richard "Deej" Webb Jr., is an author, an award winning educator, and a documentary filmmaker. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he taught history for twenty four years at both the high school and college levels. A featured presenter in the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Prohibition documentary Connecticut Goes Dry, Webb is also co-creator and co-producer with Robert Williams of a documentary film about the Fitzgeralds in Connecticut, which is a companion to this book. He has been a resident of the Westport, Connecticut area since 1967. Webb is a national consultant to many historical societies and libraries. He lives happily in an historic home with his wife Deborah, and their dogs, Zelda and Daisy.
The foreword to Boats Against the Current is written by Robert Steven Williams, a Harvard Business School Graduate, music industry consultant and film-maker who lives in Westport, Connecticut. Williams and Webb have collaborated on a film about Fitzgerald in Westport that aired in 2020.