St. Paul Winter Carnival historian Bob Olsen will present a short program on the carnival’s ice palaces, followed by a discussion of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous story “The Ice Palace,” at 4 p.m. Sunday at Common Good Books, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul. The free evening is part of the FitzFirst@Four discussion series focusing on the context, events or well-known people that shaped the stories of Fitzgerald, who was born in St. Paul.
In “The Ice Palace,” a southern girl visits her boyfriend’s family in St. Paul and dislikes the male-oriented culture in which the women are distant and treated “like domestics.” She panics when she becomes lost in the dark Winter Carnival ice palace and realizes she cannot live in the north. The story is reflective of Fitzgerald’s experience of bringing his Alabama-born wife, Zelda, to Minnesota.
For information about this program or the FitzFirst@Four series, email info@fitzgeraldinsaintpaul.org or go to fitzgeraldinsaintpaul.org.
— Mary Ann Grossmann
Copyright 2014 Pioneer Press.
