On the Life of Father Cyril Sigourney Fay

In 1931, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Willa Cather from the island of Capri “to explain an instance of apparent plagiarism” in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald worried his admiration for Cather’s A Lost Lady may, like the moon receiving its luminescence from the sun, have been reflected too brightly in his novel. He enclosed early drafts to prove his innocence. From her comfortable seat of literary greatness, Cather shrugged away his concern: “So many people have tried to say that same thing before either you or I tried it, and nobody has said it yet.” Cather did not mention whether she borrowed Fitzgerald’s mentor, Father Fay, for the priest of the same name in her novel My Mortal Enemy. Mostly forgotten by history but unforgettable to those who knew him, Father Cyril Sigourney Fay was an “exceedingly fat” man of great personal charm. He had a buoyant personality and childlike faith beloved of Fitzgerald, Henry Adams, Cardinal Gibbons, and Pope Benedict XV.