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suzannetronier 's review for:
Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby
by Sarah Churchwell
Tying the Great Gatsby, the Fitzgerald's lives and a rather florid murder of the time put an interesting spin on Gatsby and the author has a number of interesting insights about the time, the book and F. Scott himself. My only frustration with the book is that it was often repetitive and would sometimes go off on tangential paths that weren't that interesting. I would have enjoyed it more in a more condensed package. Still I was interested to learn things about Fitzgerald's life that I hadn't known -- that he died young, broke and little known, that Gatsby had faded from it's initial lackluster release. I loved Churchwell's conclusion about Gatsby: that it was a novel that illuminated its age with tender affection while recognizing the toxicity of its excesses. And that he managed, with a perfect balance, to both celebrate and condemn the lives of the idle rich.