This ARC landed in my inbox at either the absolute best or absolute worst time: just as I was wrapping up my annual reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby with my juniors for the third year in a row. The thing is, high school English teachers pick things they don’t mind reading multiple times a year, and don’t mind dissecting over and over again. I love Gatsby, and–possibly because of the 2013 movie–it was even last year’s prom theme. (Yes, I chaperoned in my best 1920s costume.)
So a murder mystery set in in the world of one of my favorite novels? Let’s take a look at The Gatsby Gambit by Claire Anderson Wheeler.
America’s most beloved literary characters.
A page-turning mystery.
The gilded opulence of the Roaring Twenties.
And a clever young woman of unusual persistence.
Be ready to re-think the world of Gatsby.
Freshly twenty-one and sporting a daring new bob, Greta Gatsby–younger sister to the infamous Jay—is finally free of her dull finishing school, and looking forward to an idyllic summer at the Gatsby Mansion, the jewel of West Egg. From its breathtaking views to its eccentric denizens, Greta is eager to inhale it all–even to the predictable disapproval of Mrs Dantry, Jay’s exacting housekeeper. Indeed, nothing could disrupt the blissful time Greta has planned… except finding out that Jay’s cadre of dubious friends—Daisy and Tom Buchanan, along with Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker—will be summering there, too.
It’s hard to be noticed when the luminous Daisy Buchanan is in the room, and Jordan keeps rather too close tabs on handsome Nick Carraway for Greta’s liking. But by far the worst is Daisy’s boorish husband, Tom, whose explosive temper seems always balanced on a knife-edge. But soon, bad blood is the least of their problems, as a shocking event sets the Gatsby household reeling.
Death has come to West Egg, and with it, a web of scandal, betrayal, and secrets. Turning sleuth isn’t how Greta meant to spend her summer—but what choice does she have, when everyone else seems intent on living in a world of make-believe?
Deftly subverting romantic notions about money, power, and freedom that still stand today, THE GATSBY GAMBIT is a sparkling homage to, and reinvention of, a world American readers have lionized for generations.
So my brief review:
This is a book best suited to people who are not intimately familiar with Fitzgerald’s version. I received my advance copy at the same time I was once again finishing The Great Gatsby with my students, so the details of the original were too fresh for me to sink fully into this new world and Wheeler’s versions of the characters.
The story starts slowly, inserting the new character of Greta Gatsby as she finally comes home from all her years of being sent off to school. She begins to interact with alternate versions of Fitzgerald’s characters as Wheeler navigates what’s the same (not much) and what’s different in her version. There are some Easter egg references to the original, but also a lot of changes, and not all of those changes seem entirely necessary to the plot. My students, however, heartily applaud her choice of victim, although they always wish someone else had done the deed. Wheeler offers up various suspects as Greta takes off on her own to prove herself worthy (and independent) in a male-dominated world, annoying the detectives and her brother alike when she’s convinced that the apparent suicide isn’t all it appears to be.
It’s a slow burn until it breathlessly barrels down the last quarter of the book, and it’s at the end, freed from any premise of the inspiration text, that Wheeler really shines. I struggled with the characterization of Tom, Daisy, Nick, Jordan, and Jay because I wasn’t sure how much I was supposed to remember from Fitzgerald and how much they were supposed to be different (changed, perhaps, because it seems most of the events of Fitzgerald’s book happened the summer before this one starts). If you have faint memories of lavish parties and a green light from your own high school days, you’ll probably enjoy it.
Four stars out of five
The thing is, unless you routinely go through Prestwick House chapter questions about the book, you’re not going to notice a lot of Wheeler’s changes. Who remembers what religion the Buchanans are, anyway? (Everyone who has to answer the question about the elaborate lie that surprises Nick in Chapter II, at least if they have to correct it once a year.) I’m not sure why it ends up as one of the book’s great quotes, but in the original, they’re not Catholic. Wheeler, however, makes a point of stressing the fact that they are.
On the one hand, it seems like such a silly thing, but on the other … why use the Gatsby name at all? There have to be changes to keep Jay alive, of course (spoilers, sorry) and the fact that Wheeler gives him a younger sister to be at the center of the story makes for further changes, but the best parts of the book are the ones where Wheeler’s original characters take center stage and shove the well-known (and possibly hated) Fitzgerald characters to the side. I think that’s even a large part of what makes for a slow start: she has to spend so much time explaining who her Gatsby and Daisy and Tom and Nick and Jordan are, and separating them from the characters we might be expected to know.
Every so often there’s what seems to be an Easter egg–Daisy’s wedding necklace, for example, plays a part–but they’re at odds with the new backstories and new relationships Wheeler’s trying to forge. Why make these callbacks to specific parts of the original (like a gas station owner and his wife moving away for some mysterious reason) when so many other aspects of the characters’ histories and personalities have changed? Jay Gatsby is still a rich man with poor beginnings who throws parties, but those poor beginnings are vastly altered and Wheeler never quite explains how, if he isn’t a bootlegger, he went from poor to a soldier to his vast wealth.
Are these questions going to plague most readers? I doubt it. But I also think Wheeler’s story would have been stronger if she’d either more fully committed to Fitzgerald’s characters or been allowed to leave the Gatsby name behind entirely. As it stands, the title alone sets us up for a much deeper connection between the source text and her murder mystery than we find in the book.
I’m especially interested to see how readers who don’t have such a close connection to The Great Gatsby respond because, like I said, I was either going to be the best or the worst audience for this book.
The Gatsby Gambit is out April 1.
Rebecca Frost 