THE GREAT DISILLUSIONMENT OF NICK AND JAY

A queer Black reimagining of The Great Gatsby.

Seventeen-year-old Nick Carrington of Greenwood, Oklahoma, comes from a long line of Black journalists, and he, too, wants to be a writer. When tragedy strikes, Nick seeks refuge with his extended family in Harlem. His cousin Daisy is ambitious, and she encourages Nick to apply to the prestigious West Egg Academy, which Jay Gatsby Sr. and Tom Buchanan co-founded, in order to make connections and find his way in New York. Nick receives a scholarship, but he soon realizes the supposedly integrated haven where “migrants from the South [can] escape prejudice and access the opportunities of an elite education” is just a smokescreen. African American students are pushed into the manual labor track and live in subpar housing. As Nick wrestles with exposing the truth, he starts to fall for biracial Jay Gatsby Jr. and must decide if love is worth compromising on liberation. The setting is well developed, and as part of establishing the historical texture, the book uses the language of the times, including terms like Colored and Negro. Unfortunately, the execution is challenged by trying to pack in numerous historical elements—the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Harlem Renaissance, Prohibition, and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association—without sufficient room to fully develop them, resulting in a story that lacks cohesion. The character development is also insufficient, making it hard to connect or empathize with the main characters.

An interesting premise that doesn’t quite deliver.