Head and Shoulders

A scholar. A showgirl. A spectacular reversal of fortune—and gender roles.

Fitzgerald wrote Head and Shoulders in early 1920, riding the wave of his sudden literary fame after the publication of This Side of Paradise. He was living in New York with Zelda, immersed in the glittering chaos of Jazz Age nightlife. This story, sold to The Saturday Evening Post and published on February 21, 1920, became one of his first major commercial successes—earning him a whopping $650 (nearly $10,000 today).

Like many of his early short works, it blends screwball romanticism with biting social commentary, all wrapped in clever, champagne-fizz dialogue.

The Story
Horace Tarbox is a prodigy—an intellectual giant with a head full of Greek and a heart full of absolutely nothing else. At 17, he’s already a Yale philosophy graduate and well on his way to a life of dusty brilliance. But then enters Marcia Meadow, a vaudeville performer who tumbles—literally—into his world like a whirlwind in tights.

Their whirlwind courtship is full of charm and contradiction: she’s brash, he’s reserved; she dances, he dithers. Against all academic judgment, Horace falls in love. But as life unfolds, it's Marcia who becomes the household name—while Horace finds himself juggling diapers and domesticity.

By story’s end, the roles are entirely reversed: she becomes the family’s breadwinner, and he becomes a footnote in her rising fame.

A fizzy, subversive tale about gender, genius, and the unpredictability of love, Head and Shoulders is Fitzgerald at his wry, satirical best.

Published: February 21, 1920 (The Saturday Evening Post)