If George Wilson didn’t kill Jay Gatsby, who did?
Someone described this book to me as “The Great Gatsby retold as a murder mystery” and I was sold!
I immediately opened my library app, found the ebook was readily available, checked it out, and downloaded it into my Kindle app.
Unfortunately, this was at a holiday party when I had had enough to drink that, the next morning, I remembered someone had told me about a book I wanted to read, but I couldn’t remember what it was. It took me a few minutes to remember that, not only had I already looked it up, it was sitting in my Kindle account waiting for me.
Some people drunk text or drunk post on social media.
Me? I drunk check out books from the library.
This book is so good and I’m so glad I drunk checked it out and downloaded it!
It is, indeed, The Great Gatsby retold as a murder mystery.
It starts in Kentucky in WWI, when Daisy meets a soldier named Jay Gatsby. They fall madly in love, but her father doesn’t approve of her getting familiar with a lowly soldier.
Not only does Gatsby go off to war, but as soon as he does, Daisy’s father and beloved sister are killed in a train wreck. Soon after, she finds out her father was deeply in debt and they’re going to have to sell the house to pay off his creditors.
So she goes about trying to find herself a wealthy husband. When Tom Buchanan comes along, her prayers are answered… or so it seems.
Meanwhile, her best friend, Jordan, is determined to be a professional golfer so she’ll never have to rely on a man to provide for her. That’s for the best since she’s attracted to the fairer sex.
Then there’s Catherine McCoy, Myrtle Wilson’s sister. She’s a farm girl who followed her sister to the big city, but is by no means in her sister’s shadow. She has her own job and fights for women’s suffrage when she’s not checking in on her sister who keeps sprouting mysterious bruises.
The story of The Great Gatsby is retold from the shifting perspectives of these three women, and I love that a novel with such a heavy male gaze has been retold with an exclusively female perspective.
The only exception is Frank, the detective charged with finding out what really happened to Gatsby by a local crime boss who was close to Gatsby and doesn’t buy the narrative that George Wilson killed him in a fit of rage.
This crime boss has offered Frank a lot of money to find his friend’s killer, so he’s very motivated to deliver. When he finds a diamond hairpin at the crime scene, he can only conclude one of these three women isn’t telling him the full story.
Turns out none of them are telling him the full story, and that’s what makes this retelling worthwhile. Because it’s not just a retelling, but a reimagining.
Because Nick wasn’t telling the full story either…
This book doesn’t just add backstory and context to a short novel. It retells it in a way that makes you question everything you ever thought you knew about Jay Gatsby or Daisy Buchanan. Or Jordan Baker for that matter.
I won’t spoil the ending for you. I’ll just say that, aside from Frank, all the men in this book are terrible. It is one of the most feminist books I’ve read in a while without losing sight of the thrilling ride it was taking me on! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and I hope you do, too.