The Great Gatsby: And Stories from All the Sad Young Men

Set in the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel explores class, morality, love, and obsession through a story of loss and disregard, of broken, brittle, empty, yearning people seemingly lost in their lives. The short novel, in most editions spanning less than 150 pages, is nonetheless expansive in its plotting, tracing back through circles of characters who knew each other in past incarnations, intersecting with other characters they connect with in tangential but deadly ways. The story is narrated by Yale alum Nick Carraway, who moves to West Egg, Long Island, where he lives next door to the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby. Pulled into Gatsby’s circle, Nick meets anew his distant cousin Daisy, the love of Gatsby’s life, who married another Yalie, Tom Buchanan. Through even more connections, the story unravels—as do the lives of almost everyone involved, leaving Nick to reflect upon what he has witnessed.