# Anyone Else Think "The Great Brain" was obnoxious?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-think-the-great-brain-was-obnoxious/722302>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 12, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-think-the-great-brain-was-obnoxious/722302 "2015-06-12T00:40:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-think-the-great-brain-was-obnoxious/722302/21 "2015-06-14T13:19:41Z")

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> [@xizor](#):
>
> I was curious enough to spend 15 minutes googling to see what happened to Tom as an adult.  
> Turns out not much, the real Tom (Thomas N., not Thomas D.) died a old man ( 1902-1988, the books were only loosely biographical ) and lived mostly an obscure life. There is one site that is blocked by my corporate IT by someone who has been researching the family ([http://findingfitzgerald.com](http://findingfitzgerald.com).  
> But no wikipedia entry or no list of google hits chronicling the life of a master con artist. ☹

> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> His first wife died young giving birth to a daughter, and he had two or three kids with his second wife, who divorced him in 1937 after he developed a drinking problem. As far as I can tell, he lived in Price his entire life.

> [@Nonsuch](#):
>
> Ironically, while John D. made his name as a writer chronicling his family, he actually rarely saw them once he grew up and left home. The one he was closest to seems to have been his sister Belle, who collaborated with him (uncredited) on his early “adult” Adenville books and whose experience at a Catholic boarding school in Salt Lake City inspired The Great Brain at the Academy.
> 
> On that subject, Papa Married a Mormon (John’s first family memoir) is an interesting read for Great Brain fans, albeit a pretty sentimental and dated one. There’s a chapter in which Tom and his brothers convince a woman she’s being stalked by renegade Indians that reads like a dry run of the Great Brain books.

> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> I read one thing that suggests that the Great Brain books were, in part, an attempt by John Fitzgerald to reconcile with his brother. There had always been a certain level of rivalry between them, partly because John was so smart…John was two years younger than Tom, but they were in the same graduating class because John was skipped ahead. And, John managed to get out…he became a jazz musician, a reporter in New York, a international correspondent, a staffer on the Wilkie campaign, while Tom stayed in Utah and just had all this tragedy (baby dies, wife dies, starts drinking, second wife leaves him, becomes a recluse, son dies, etc.), and the relationship between the two just wasn’t there. So part his motivation in writing them was sort of outreach to his brother.

Thank you! I would never have thought to research that, but now that you have, I am very grateful.

I loved those books, but OF COURSE Tom was obnoxious. That was sort of the point. But yes, endearing, too.

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