Beautiful Little Fools

Starred review from November 1, 2021
Cantor (Half Life) succeeds brilliantly with this audacious revisionist murder mystery featuring characters from The Great Gatsby. In Fitzgerald’s version, it was George Wilson who killed Jay Gatsby. Here, Cantor imagines a woman shooting Gatsby in “heat...anger...and...madness.” Three women figure prominently in the narrative. There’s “careless, carefree” Daisy Buchanan from Louisville, Ky., who “wanted to be someone who mattered”; her ambitious, sporty childhood best friend, Jordan Baker, who is embroiled in a women’s golf circuit scandal; and Catherine McCoy, who leaves the family farm for New York City, where she works for the National Women’s League, attends suffrage meetings, and worries about the bruises on her sister. Cantor successfully captures the style and tone of the 1925 novel with vivid details, such as Daisy’s “lavish honeymoon in the South Seas”; a life of luxury in Santa Barbara, Calif.; a Cannes chateau; and the ultimate extravagances of East Egg. Also featuring into the story is Det. Frank Charles, who believes everyone he interrogates about Gatsby’s death is an “incurable liar.” Loneliness, homesickness, and the “forever endless winding river” of grief pursue Daisy as justice is served. Proving once again that it is “hard to forget the past,” Cantor’s admirably convincing act of literary skullduggery offers many rewards. Agent: Jessica Regal, Foundry Media.

November 1, 2021
Several women involved with Jay Gatsby would like to set the record straight. Using The Great Gatsbyas a springboard, Cantor gives voice to that novel's female characters as they provide their recollections and interpretations of the events leading up to the murder of one of American fiction's most enigmatic characters. Gatsby's original narrator, Nick Carraway, swaps his role as narrator for one as a character. The storytelling here is done by Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Catherine McCoy (in a promotion from her small original role as the doomed Myrtle Wilson's sister). Even Myrtle is heard from, however briefly. As Detective Frank Charles--who harbors the secrets and heartaches which so often haunt the lonely detective of mystery novels--untangles the stories told to him by the women who survive Gatsby, the whodunit aspects of the refocused version of Fitzgerald's rags-to-riches saga gain momentum. Daisy's motives for marrying (and staying with) the boorish Tom Buchanan are cast in a new light, as is the backstory shadowing Jordan Baker. Gatsby himself is less of a cipher now that the women are getting their say. Cantor's title borrows from Daisy's remark, from Fitzgerald's original and echoed here, when she was informed her baby was a girl: "a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." (Sadly, the phrase "a beautiful little fool" is reported to have been what Zelda Fitzgerald uttered when told she had borne a daughter.) Less glittering and lyrical than the original, this Gatsbyretelling reveals more about the women in the story by casting them as humans, not decorative baubles. Cantor asks and answers: Who were the real fools in Gatsby's world?

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December 1, 2021
"That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool," says Daisy in The Great Gatsby. Cantor reframes Fitzgerald's masterpiece through the perspectives of its women, Daisy, her friend Jordan Baker, and Catherine (sister to Daisy's husband's mistress). Avoiding spoilers for the original and this derivative, here's the plot: Daisy Fay, a Louisville socialite, has a torrid romance with Jay Gatsby, a penniless soldier, before he ships off to WWI. She doesn't wait for him, instead marrying fabulously wealthy polo player and serial philanderer Tom Buchanan. Years later, Gatsby has built a fortune for one purpose, recapturing what he believed he had with Daisy. Cantor rewrites elements of the tale, giving Jordan Baker a "secret" that could destroy her, Daisy a familial backstory that influences her actions, and Catherine a behind-the-scenes role. Unlike the original destructive, self-absorbed characters and the pervasive issue of class, Cantor focuses instead on portraying Daisy and her fellow females in a sympathetic light, reimagining and empowering them to speak to readers with a feminist bent.

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