Pat Hobby, the protagonist in the stories, is a down-and-out screenwriter in Hollywood, once successful as "a good man for structure" during the silent age of cinema, but now reduced to an alcoholic hack hanging around the studio lot.

Most stories find him broke and engaged in some ploy for money or a much-desired screen credit, but his antics usually backfire and end in further humiliation.

Drawing on his own experiences as a writer in Hollywood, Fitzgerald portrays Pat Hobby with self-deprecating humor and nostalgia.

In an introduction to The Pat Hobby Stories, editor Arnold Gingrich notes how "while it would be unfair to judge this book as a novel, it would be less than fair to consider it as anything but a full-length portrait.

The cast also included Colin Firth as Rene Wilcox, Joseph Campanella as Jack Berners, and Dennis Franz as Louie.