In the summer of 1922, Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner working in the bond business, rents a small house in West Egg on Long Island. Next door stands a vast mansion where Jay Gatsby, a wealthy man no one seems to know much about, throws extravagant parties every weekend. Across the bay in fashionable East Egg live Nick's cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan, a brutish former college football star.
Nick gradually learns that Gatsby and Daisy knew each other years before, and that the green light at the end of the Buchanans' dock holds special meaning for his neighbour. Through Nick's eyes we meet the golfer Jordan Baker, Tom's mistress Myrtle Wilson and her husband George, who runs a garage in the grim valley of ashes between the suburbs and Manhattan.
Short and lyrical, the novel is a portrait of the excess of the Roaring Twenties and a critique of the American Dream, class and reinvention. Little noticed on publication in 1925, it is now one of the most widely taught American novels.
Book details
| Author | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
|---|---|
| First published | 1925 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Classic |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 180 |
| Setting | Long Island and New York City, summer 1922 |
Themes
- The American Dream
- Wealth and class
- Longing
- Reinvention
- Moral decay
Who should read it
Readers looking for a short, beautifully written American classic about ambition, money and longing.