After graduating with a degree in Comparative Literature in 1984, I moved to West Hollywood, and while reading a Fitzgerald biography, I realized I was living on the same street Scott had lived on: Laurel Avenue. This was a revelation for me because in my last semester I had been enthralled by a class on The Great Gatsby taught by Professor Gervais, who brought Gatsby to life and sparked my lifelong love affair with the book.
Let me say right off that this is an amazing addition to the Fitzgerald and Gatsby canon. I read more than 20 books about the Fitzgeralds for a creative nonfiction piece in my collection Inside Orwell and Other Stories. That piece focuses on the dark side of Scott and Zelda’s journey, and Kirkus Reviews called the collection “…cohesive, focused, and absorbing.”
I apologize for the shameless plug, but my point is that I know a lot about the Fitzgeralds, and I hope that underscores what a well-researched, entertaining, and readable book Corrigan has written. Even readers who know a great deal about the Fitzgeralds and Gatsby will discover something new as they read on.
The bottom line is that this is the best Fitzgerald book published in the last 20 years. It’s one to savor, and I plan to read it again and again.
Find So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures by Maureen Corrigan on Audiobooks, Amazon/Audible, and Bookstores who are not Amazon.
You might also like Kristin B. and Other Stories by Joseph Raffetto, which includes the novella “Young Scott and Zelda” and “Three A.M.,” a look back at Scott and Zelda’s fall from grace.
You might also like The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
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