Owen Johnson. The Salamander. 1914; Amazon Digital Services, 2011. E-book.

Fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald and people researching his Jazz Age stories will be interested in The Salamander. A recent review here noted how a friend said that all Fitzgerald’s female characters are based on his wife Zelda.

Zelda, in turn, was influenced by The Salamander. While we are not sure if she read the book, a film version came out in 1916 which she saw multiple times and admitted that it portrayed the kind of person that she wanted to be. Scott himself would acknowledge that Owen Johnson wrote about his generation as well as anyone.

The salamander (i.e., the sylph) in this story is Doré (née Florence) Baxter. The story, witnessed from her point of view, tells of the many wealthy men she is able to string along as this Ohio girl tries to succeed in New York City. She has acted in a few plays—a producer friend sees great potential in her—but she mostly uses her beauty and charm to get what she wants (e.g., furs and jewelry) from her wealthy beaux.

It gets complicated trying to juggle relationships among approximately a dozen men. It appears that the two men she finds most attractive may make things more complicated. One older man in his forties (she is twenty-two) is a respected judge, married but no children. The other is a reckless young heir who likes to live dangerously. I wonder if the wild automobile ride he takes her on inspired Scott and Zelda’s The Cruise of the Rolling Junk.

Doré, nicknamed Dodo (a nickname Zelda would use for Scott), really is quite clever. She may be shallow, but she is no fool, and she is looking to have fun. There is tension: She is worldly enough that she bears some skepticism when it comes to love, but at the same time she understands that finding love is a desirable thing.

There is certain amount of humor and irony in The Salamander as we encounter the young movers and shakers in the New York of the early twentieth century. Among her boyfriends are a newspaper editor and a shrewd Wall Streeter. These two men see each other as rivals. The editor writes nasty articles about alleged ethical breaches of the tycoon, who in turn tries to put the editor into bankruptcy.

While Doré’s background is more like Jay Gatsby’s, she will remind readers of Daisy Buchanan, Gloria Patch, or Rosalind Connage. The plot is character-driven and does not have the literary quality of The Great Gatsby, but if the reader wants to see a precursor to those Fitzgerald divas and perhaps even to Zelda herself, read The Salamander.

The brief epilogue reminded this reader of Judith Jones, the femme fatale in Fitzgerald’s short story “Winter Dreams.” Not only did Scott Fitzgerald admire Owen Johnson, but Doré’s last words in the novel may well express Zelda’s own view of herself. Perhaps for that reason alone we might want to check out the work of Mr. Johnson.

P.S. For an articulate review on the connection between The Salamander and Zelda Fitzgerald see “The Salamander: Zelda Fitzgerald and the Invention of the Flapper.”