By F Scott Fitzgerald
This story takes place early in the Prohibition era. Several wealthy young socialites are spending their summer between visits to Manhattan and their summer homes in a Long Island resort community (The Hamptons?). The story is narrated by Nick Carroway, a cousin of Daisy Buchanan.
As a young soldier headed off to serve in the first World War, Jay Gatsby is poor but ambitious, and he falls in love with beautiful, wealthy and spoiled Daisy Buchanan. After the war, Jay is suddenly wealthy, and searches for his lost love. When he learns she is married, Jay is sure he can convince her to leave her insensitive husband Tom. Jay rents the mansion across the bay from Daisy and Tom, throwing lavish parties complete with flappers, jazz, and bathtub gin to impress his lady love. Jay calls on Nick, who is renting a cottage adjacent to his mansion, to arrange a visit with Daisy. Nick obliges, and Daisy happily reconnects with the smitten Jay while her husband Tom is off at work or romancing his secret girlfriend.
Commuting from his beautiful summer home and his Manhattan office, Tom makes regular stops at the filling station along the tracks, purportedly to get gas and talk cars with the owner, but really to connect with the owner's sexy wife Myrtle, who periodically meets up with Tom in a NY apartment he rents for her. Just as Jay wants Daisy to run away with him, Myrtle dreams of running away from her own husband to be with Tom.
On one particularly hot summer afternoon, Daisy and Tom, their houseguest Jordan Baker, cousin Nick, and Jay Gatsby, who by now has ingratiated himself into the family circle, are bored and looking for some excitement. They head into the city, where the boredom is only exacerbated, and it's clear that each character, despite their wealth, is rather a lost soul, with no real focus, nor ability to fill the emptiness. To make it worse, it seems that Tom knows of Jay's intentions and that Daisy in turn suspects Tom of infidelity- making for an uncomfortable afternoon... Returning home, Daisy and Jay take Tom's yellow convertible (with Daisy at the wheel) while Tom, Jordan and Nick drive home in Jay's car. A motorcar accident ensues, and then a double tragedy.
And then... for selfish Daisy and Tom, life seems to not miss a beat. They seem unconcerned about the needs of the others. But for the others, their lives will never be the same.
Though this novel is short, F Scott Fitzgerald makes the most of each line through his judicious use of narrative. Besides the story line, another tragedy is that the only person to have matured and changed through the story is Nick.
I'll never forget seeing the 1973 film "The Great Gatsby", filmed at Rosecliff.
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