There’s a new book out called Gatsby’s Girl by Caroline Preston. The idea of the book is to provide a glimpse into what happened to the (in)famous F. Scott Fitzgerald character Daisy from The Great Gatsby.

For the historical portion of this tale - Fitzgerald based Daisy on his first real-life love, Ginerva. She was 16, the daughter of a wealthy Illinois and attending a boarding school in Connecticut. Fitzgerald was 19, poor, not famous and on break from Princeton. They met at a country club party and carried on a love affair, mostly by mail. We know this because Fitzgerald kept her letters.

So, in the manner of all good love stories, Ginerva decided Fitzgerald was beneath her, threw him over and married a handsome pilot instead. Ginerva, apparently, was rich and shallow. Fitzgerald, we know, later finds Zelda. And, yeah, he was a drunk.

Here’s the fiction part: The novel starts 10 years after Fitzgerald’s death. His son tracks down Ginerva and wants to know the real story of the romance. By this time Ginerva’s life is pathetic and sad. She has followed Fitzgerald’s work hoping to find traces of her and is touched when she sees herself in Fitzgerald’s work. An odd thought for me since Fitzgerald is not always kind to his female characters, but whatever.

This one is based on a real person, but the book is fiction. I’m not sure where real ends and fiction begins. Maybe Ginerva’s life was this bad post-Fitzgerald. Not sure, but it does make for interesting reading and an interesting plot idea. Reminds me in some ways of Mary Reilly, the book by Valerie Martin about the maid to Dr. Jekyll (and Mr. Hyde). That one is all fiction. The book was good - the movie sucked. Stick with the book.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 21st, 2006 at 10:21 am and is filed under About Authors, About Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.