Pop the champagne and join and Jeff and Rebecca as they revisit F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in today’s episode of Zero to Well-Read. They dig into how it became a classic, why it’s all over high school reading lists (and why that’s the exact wrong time to read it), and what it still has to say about the American Dream.

This episode originally aired in September of last year as the launch title for the podcast, and listening back gave me all the warm fuzzies. We were shiny, we were new, we didn’t have a dedicated email address! We’ve had a great time diving deep into books with y’all since then and welcome all the newcomers who’ve joined our book club/English class hybrid since.

As we return to the Real Housewives of West Egg today, I’ve rounded up some title trivia, some Gatsby readalikes and remixes, and Stewie Griffin’s take on Gatsby for the not-easily-offended. We’ll learn how Gatsby was almost a flop, and what it has to do with Jeff Goldblum’s love life.

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It’s a Good Thing Gatsby Won

I never had strong feelings about the title of this book… until I learned what the other options were. Can you guess which of these strings of words was not in the running? Answer at the end.

• Gold-Hatted Gatsby
• Trimalchio in West Egg
• A Long Island Longing
• Among Ash Heaps and Millionaires
• On the Road to West Egg
• The High-Bouncing Lover

Out of Context Show Quotes

• “Alternate title: Crazy Rich Caucasians.”
• “I have read about the history of highway safety.”
• “Yeah, gin-soaked and emotional is a real vibe.”
• “F. Scott Fitzgerland: shitty at titling books.”

From Flop to Fame

When F. Scott Fitzgerland died in 1940 at age 44, he did so believing The Great Gatsby was a failure. And he wasn’t wrong, exactly. At the time of his passing, Gatsby was, as the good folks at NPR put it, a “moldering flop.”

Then in 1945, the Council on Books in Wartime printed special editions of over 1300 books to send to U.S. military members as “weapons in the war of ideas,” an act aimed at boosting soldier morale. Gatsby was one of the books selected, and 150,000 copies were sent overseas. Gatsby was incredibly well received by the troops, and just like that, The Great Gatsby was brought back into cultural awareness. Just 10 years later, Scribner published the first student edition in 1957, and Gatsby has been Scribner’s bestselling book of the year basically every year since.

Opinions No One Asked For: Real Estate Edition

I was very much in high school the last (and only) time I read Gatsby, and I’d forgotten a core piece of the plot: that Gatsby bought that McMansion in West Egg just to be closer to Daisy. I dunno what the opposite of a spite house is—a simp house? crush crib? an unfulfilled desire den?—but hot tip: maybe pick up the phone (or send a letter, or a pigeon) and tell me you like me before going into escrow.

Adaptation Nation

There are a few Gatsby adaptations out in the world, and none of them have landed all that well. We have:

• The 1974 film starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow
• The 2000 TV movie starring Toby Stephens, Mia Sorvino, and Paul Rudd
• The 2013 Baz Luhrmann film starring Leo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Debicki, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, and Isla Fisher – aka a stacked cast for a film most people I know describe most glowingly as “meh”
• and many, many more.

I don’t know what all these adaptations are missing, since it’s definitely not the talent or the budget. As a Romeo + Juliet stan, my money would absolutely have been on Baz Luhrmann getting the job done, especially reunited with Leo. Maybe a fabulous drag number from Harold Perrineau would have made the difference?

Extra Credit

Readalikes and Such

• The Great Mann by Kira Davis Lurie – Also set in the ‘20s,  it remixes Gatsby as a story among a wealthy, elite black community in L.A.
• Beautiful Little Fools by Gillian Cantor – Shifts the perspectives to the three women of the book: Daisy, Myrtle, and Jordan Baker
• So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures by Maureen Corrigan – Best summed up as “what we talk about when we talk about Gatsby“
• Nick by Michael Farris Smith – a Gatsby prequel exploring Nick’s backstory before arriving in West Egg

And here are a few of Book Riot’s Gatsby retelling favorites:

• The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay by Ryan Douglass – Swaps the Long Island setting for Harlem and Gatsby’s mansion for the prestigious West Egg Academy, where Jay Gatsby Jr. is the son of the school’s founder and Nick it’s newest student.
• The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo – A fantasy Gatsby retelling where Jordan Baker is a queer, Asian adoptee and the focal point of the story. Even if you didn’t like Gatsby, you should read this book.
• The Pursued and the Pursuing by AJ – A queer reimagining that explores what might have been if Gatsby got his shot at happiness, but with Nick instead of Daisy
• Self-Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore – An installment in a fantastic series of remixed classics, in which both Nick and Gatsby are trans, and Daisy is a queer Latina passing as white

Supplemental Reading (and Watching/Listening)

• The Great Gatsby at 100: A six-course Audible exclusive from The Great Courses Plus that dives deep into the book, its cultural context, and lasting legacy
• At Book Riot: Reflecting on 100 years of Gatsby
• Here’s the Gatsby summary you didn’t know you needed, and/or might be supremely offended by: the Family Guy edition, featuring Stewie as “Nick ‘the Situation’ Carraway.”
• On a very different note: Jeff Goldblum gets teary-eyed reading from The Great Gatsby, a passage he read to his wife, Emilie Livingston, on their first date
• From the American Writers Museum series, “Stories Behind Classic Book Covers,” here’s a deep dive into “Celestial Eyes” and the iconic cover art for Gatsby
• If there’s one thing Buzzfeed gon’ do, it’s round up a bunch of GIFs, memes, and tweets about a thing. I laughed a little too hard at several of these Gatsby-themed funnies, like the tweet about the One Sport deodorant and the Dr. Phil tumblr meme (I know, eww, but it is SPOT on).

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Answer: A Long Island Longing was not on F. Scott Fitz’s shortlist. Shoutout to Jessica Shealey for suggesting the best actual alternate title: “My Summer of Third-Wheeling: A Memoir.“