Edna Ferber was an American novelist, author and playwright. She worked she worked in newspapers – specifically at the Appleton Daily Crescent and the Milwaukee Journal – before publishing her first novel. She covered the 1920 Republican and Democratic national conventions for the United Press Association, in fact. Her works Show Boat, Giant, Saratoga Trunk, and Cimarron were made into films, and Show Boat and Saratoga Trunk also became musicals. In 1925, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her book So Big.

The Gigolo is the title story of a collection that demonstrates her abilities. Gideon Gore is the scion of a wealthy family who has fallen on hard times. His father has died, his mother has taken him to Europe, and war has broken out. Enlisting as a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille, he is shot down, wounded, and captured. Released after the war he discovers his mother dead and the money all gone. He is reduced to making a living as a gigolo in Paris. His downfall appears complete when his services are engaged by a visiting family he knew as a boy back home.