Villains, Vampires, Spies: The Best Remixes of The Great Gatsby

My love for The Great Gatsby and its creator began on an August day when I was a teenager lying on a beach overlooking the very Long Island Sound that was the setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. As I read the novel I was immediately captivated by the haunting images and the lyrical rhythm of Fitzgerald’s poetic prose, for the story seemed to be playing out right in front of my eyes, in the splash of the sea and in the caressing breezes; I even imagined I could see the green light that became Jay Gatsby’s lodestar.

Fast forward to recent times, when I was knocking around the French Riviera researching the setting for my own novel, The Girl from the Grand Hotel. I had discovered a little nugget of history that was hiding in plain sight: in August of 1939, glamorous folks like Fitzgerald summered with 1930s Hollywood movie stars in anticipation of the first (and doomed) Cannes Film Festival, but were instead thrust into a collision course with fascist spies and the explosive beginning of the second World War.

Because F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Côte d’Azur are so enshrined together in history, I had brought along a volume of his letters as well as another of his later short stories. 1939 and 1940 were the last two years of Scott’s life and I learned that, contrary to the mythology that still surrounds him, Fitzgerald at this time was not the alcoholic wastrel that he’s been labeled, but a hardworking, heroic author still creating wonderful stories, despite the exigencies of his life.

Even today, many people don’t realize that The Great Gatsby was not a big success in the author’s lifetime, for a number of foolish reasons that he could hardly be blamed for. By 1939 he was broke, ill, and many of his books were going out of print, yet Fitzgerald still believed in striving for “some sort of epic grandeur” in his writing.

He was in good spirits and working hard toward that goal when his heart finally gave way. When he died, copies of the first printing of The Great Gatsby still languished in his publisher’s warehouse.

As I delved into his writings, his letters, his plans, I was so enthralled by what I learned about Fitzgerald that he became a character in The Girl from the Grand Hotel; and, at the end of my novel, my heroine speculates about how different his life might have been if somehow, by 1939, he was paid all the royalties that would be due him for the future sales of The Great Gatsby.

For, after his death, Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel was rediscovered and became a mega-bestseller that still, a hundred years later, resonates all the more deeply, with its cautionary tale about the “vast carelessness” of the uber-wealthy and the perils of trying to turn back the clock.

It’s a tribute to the enduring qualities of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece that so many authors today want to extend the haunting world of The Great Gatsby with lively interpretations of their own, telling and retelling the story through the eyes of the other characters like Daisy and Nick and Myrtle, in all kinds of formats, from poetry to graphic novels to spy stories to tales of a vampire!

So, as we approach the hundred-year birthday of The Great Gatsby, I’d like to throw Fitzgerald a literary party, starting with this “guest list” below.

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Allyson Reedy, Mrs. Wilson’s Affair: A Great Gatsby Retelling (cover to be revealed)

A novel from the perspective of Myrtle Wilson, the desperate married woman who crosses paths with Tom Buchanan and becomes his tragic mistress. Myrtle’s poignant story is told by paralleling the events of The Great Gatsby, and weaving in original dialogue.

Kyra Davis Lurie, The Great Mann

A re-imagining of The Great Gatsby set in 1945 among Los Angeles’s wealthy black elite. Told from the perspective of a World War II veteran just returning from a grueling, segregated war experience. He becomes dazzled by the extravagant James “Reaper” Mann.

Claire Anderson Wheeler, The Gatsby Gambit

A Gatsby reinvention about a fictional Greta Gatsby, younger sister to Jay; she spends the summer at his mansion and meets his “dubious” friends Daisy, Tom, Nick and Jordan. When death comes to West Egg, Gatsby’s sister turns amateur sleuth.

Rachel Feder, Daisy: Poems

A narrative-poetic retelling of The Great Gatsby from the perspective of a “messy, ambitious” 1990s teen poet. Told in verse, Daisy meets modern versions of Jay, Nick, and Jordan.

R.M. Spencer, Agent Gatz: A Great Gatsby Prequel

Set eight years before The Great Gatsby, a young Jay Gatsby finds himself working as a foreign spy in Europe at the beginning of World War I. Racing through war-torn Europe, Gatsby reignites a romance with a woman from his past.

Rebecca Kenney, Beautiful Villain: A Dark and Spicy Modern Jay Gatsby

A New Adult novel with a vampiric twist, where Daisy, a recent college grad, is invited to a lavish party by her cousin Nick. There she meets Jay Gatsby and discovers that he made his millions selling immortality to the highest bidder.      

Libby Sternberg, Daisy: A Novel

Daisy Buchanan tells her side of the story and reveals what was in the letter that Jay Gatsby sent to her just before her wedding to Tom Buchanan. Gatsby’s return into her life forces Daisy to make hard choices for herself and her daughter.

Jillian Cantor, Beautiful Little Fools

A re-imagining of The Great Gatsby through the alternating voices of three women: Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle’s suffragist sister. When a diamond hairpin is found at the murder site, each woman falls under suspicion.

Michael Farris Smith, Nick

The narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, is imagined as a World War I veteran in the tumultuous years before he meets Jay Gatsby. Attempting to forget the horror and destruction that he witnessed firsthand, Nick sets off on a whirlwind journey from Paris to New Orleans seeking love and redemption.

Fred Fordham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby: The Graphic Novel (illustrated Aya Morton)

The Great Gatsby is adapted into graphic novel form by author Fred Fordham and illustrator Aya Morton.  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great-granddaughter contributed a personal introduction to the book.

Nghi Vo, The Chosen and the Beautiful

The Great Gatsby‘s glamorous golfer Jordan Baker is reinvented as an LGBTQ+ Vietnamese adoptee, viewed an exotic attraction by her peers. A coming-of-age story with magic, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries.

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The Girl from the Grand Hotel by Camille Aubray is available via Blackstone Publishing.