Beautiful Little Fools
Harper Perennial
February 1, 2022
Paperback/Audio
368
Free from publisher
On a sultry August day in 1922, Jay Gatsby is shot dead in his West Egg swimming pool. To the police, it appears to be an open-and-shut case of murder/suicide when the body of George Wilson, a local mechanic, is found in the woods nearby.
Then a diamond hairpin is discovered in the bushes by the pool, and three women fall under suspicion. Each holds a key that can unlock the truth to the mysterious life and death of this enigmatic millionaire.
Daisy Buchanan once thought she might marry Gatsby—before her family was torn apart by an unspeakable tragedy that sent her into the arms of the philandering Tom Buchanan.
Jordan Baker, Daisy’s best friend, guards a secret that derailed her promising golf career and threatens to ruin her friendship with Daisy as well.
Catherine McCoy, a suffragette, fights for women’s freedom and independence, and especially for her sister, Myrtle Wilson, who’s trapped in a terrible marriage.
Their stories unfold in the years leading up to that fateful summer of 1922, when all three of their lives are on the brink of unraveling. Each woman is pulled deeper into Jay Gatsby’s romantic obsession, with devastating consequences for all of them.
Jillian Cantor revisits the glittering Jazz Age world of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, retelling this timeless American classic from the women’s perspective. Beautiful Little Fools is a quintessential tale of money and power, marriage and friendship, love and desire, and ultimately the murder of a man tormented by the past and driven by a destructive longing that can never be fulfilled.
My review:
When I read that this was a retelling of The Great Gatsby, my first thought was whether I was going to have to re-read that book in order to enjoy this one. I'm not a re-reader....so many books, too little time is my mindset. My most prominent memory of the story is actually the movie version with Robert Redford (yes, I'm that old!). I decided to just jump in and perhaps my takeaway would suffer a bit, but hopefully some of the details would come back to me. I can't say that many of them did, but I didn't even care, because this book is fantastic! While the original book is told from the perspective of Gatsby's neighbor Nick, this book is told from the viewpoint of three women entangled in Gatsby's life. The characters were brilliantly portrayed and I was sucked into their stories immediately. They may have been beautiful, but they were anything but little fools. Then of course there is the time period of the roaring twenties and the Jazz age. The settings made you feel totally immersed in that era and you could see and feel everything down to the minutest detail. In between the women's stories is the testimony of a detective who is convinced one of these three women knows more than she's letting on. While I did think this was the weakest part of the story, I understand how it was necessary to tie in with the mystery surrounding Gatsby's ultimate end. I listened to this one on audio, and that experience is one I highly recommend for this book (provided you enjoy this medium). The characters are all narrated by different voices, pulling you into the story even more.
This book took me completely by surprise by how much I loved it! The time, place, and characters all combined to make this a hit. Even if you know nothing about the original, I cannot imagine you won't be completely hooked by this re-imagining. I can't imagine it not making my best of the year list.
I listened to The Great Gatsby a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It was much darker than I remembered from reading it in high school. This sounds good and I love that the POV are the women connected to Gatsby. Adding to my TBR.
I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did!