Beautiful Little Fools

The women closest to the late Jay Gatsby finally have their say in Cantor’s (The Lost Letter; Margot) retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary classic, The Great Gatsby. It begins with Gatsby lying dead and the women in his life being questioned about their connections to the young New England millionaire by the detective in charge of investigating Gatsby’s murder. Daisy Buchanan may have loved Gatsby as a young woman in Kentucky during the war, but she has moved on now and is trying to save her troubled marriage to Tom Buchanan. Cantor’s Daisy still loves Tom, despite his affairs, and wants their marriage to work for the sake of herself and their young daughter. Jordan Baker, Daisy’s confidante and childhood friend, is pursuing her own passions, which include professional golf and a forbidden lifestyle. And suffragette Catherine McCoy, who remained Gatsby’s friend after their brief romantic relationship, has unknowingly helped Gatsby—while he was still alive—use her sister Myrtle to get close to Tom Buchanan and further erode Daisy’s marriage. The audiobook of Cantor’s historical novel is narrated by Cassandra Campbell, Elizabeth Evans, George Newbern Brittany Pressley, and Julia Whelan, who deliver the perfect amount of subtlety as they read for characters based in New England and the American South.