The Rough Crossing by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald | Published: June 8, 1929

The Rough Crossing Synopsis

"The Rough Crossing" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was first published in The Saturday Evening Post on June 8, 1929. A well-known playwright in his 30s, Adrian Smith, and his wife, Eva Smith, are set to board a ship. Adrian and Eva experience marital difficulties while on their sea voyage. A young woman with dark hair seduces Adrian, and a young man is drawn to Eva.

Excerpt from The Rough Crossing Online Book

Once on the long, covered piers, you have come into a ghostly country that is no longer Here and not yet There. Especially at night. There is a hazy yellow vault full of shouting, echoing voices. There is the rumble of trucks and the clump of trunks, the strident chatter of a crane and the first salt smell of the sea. You hurry through, even though there's time. The past, the continent, is behind you; the future is that glowing mouth in the side of the ship; this dim turbulent alley is too confusedly the present.

About F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born to a middle-class family in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896. He was educated at Princeton University before dropping out to join the U.S. Army during World War I. After the war, he began writing short stories later published in popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's Weekly. He also published four novels during his lifetime that secured his place among America's great writers before dying at just forty-four years old in 1940.

He is one of the twentieth century's most celebrated and renowned authors. The American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright have become a literary icon, remembered for his elegant prose and romantic themes. His works explored the social tensions between Old Money and New Money in the Jazz Age, while his personal life was filled with drama. Find out more about F. Scott Fitzgerald at sevenov.com.