Gatsby's Girl - Hardcover

Preston, Caroline

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618537252 ISBN 13: 9780618537259

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006

Synopsis

Just as Jay Gatsby was haunted by Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald was haunted by his own great first love - a Chicago socialite named Ginevra. Caroline Preston evokes the entire sweep of Ginevra's life - from her first meeting with Scott to the second act of her sometimes charmed, sometimes troubled life.

About this title

About the Author

CAROLINE PRESTON is a graduate of Dartmouth College and earned her master’s degree in American civilization at Brown University. She has worked as a manuscript librarian, both at the Houghton Library at Harvard and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
She is the author of two previous novels, Jackie by Josie (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year) and Lucy Crocker 2.0. She is married to the writer Christopher Tilghman, and they live with their three sons in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Reviews

Exhuming a character buried in a famous novel sounds like a late-night violation of sacred ground, but if someone talented does the digging, who can resist the temptation to see what's there? Especially considering how many times our ghoulish curiosity has been rewarded. What sort of woman would marry the captain of the Pequod? (Check out Ahab's Wife, by Sena Jeter Naslund.) How did Jane Eyre's employer happen to have an insane wife in his attic? (That's revealed in Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys.) Would Tiny Tim be grateful to Ebenezer Scrooge later in life? (Read Louis Bayard's Mr. Timothy.) And now we can finally find out what happened to one of the beautiful and damned: Daisy Buchanan, the siren of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, The Great Gatsby.

Scholars have long known that Fitzgerald based her and several other alluring characters on Genevra King, the 16-year-old daughter of a Chicago stockbroker. Genevra and Scott met at a country club party in St. Paul in 1915 while she was visiting a friend and he was home for winter break from Princeton. They carried on an intense romance by mail, but by the time he visited again, her interest had faded. Fitzgerald wrote later, "She ended up throwing me over with the most supreme indifference and boredom."

Needless to say, he never got over her. At his request, she destroyed his voluminous correspondence, but he preserved her letters, had them typed up and put them in a notebook that he kept for the rest of his sad, drunken life. This correspondence, recently acquired by Princeton University, provides the foundation for Caroline Preston's creative reimagining of the woman whose voice was "full of money."

Gatsby's Girl opens in 1950, 10 years after Fitzgerald's death, when Genevra gets a call from Scottie, the Fitzgeralds' only child, asking to hear her version of what happened. That invitation launches Genevra on the story of her life "without the moonlight."

Preston draws the Midwestern high society of the early 20th century with a realist's eye -- a striking contrast to the poetic impressionism that won Fitzgerald such fame. Genevra is a manipulative, spoiled teenager who mesmerizes young men and spins mild scandals. Scenes involving her courtship with Scott provide an amusing portrait of her superficiality and his loopy romanticism. She's bowled over by his sensitive, artistic nature, but that means nothing to her wealthy father, who's not impressed by Scott's flippancy -- or his drag-queen choral group. In any case, long before Scott arrives for a second week-long visit, Genevra has her eye on a more manly fellow, a fact that Scott doesn't detect until she finally sends him packing. It's a marvelously drawn, excruciating testament to the persistence of a loser's adoration (sigh).

After their ignominious breakup, Genevra goes on to describe the rest of her life, and here the novel departs significantly from the real biography of Genevra King. The handsome aviator she marries turns out to be a nice, dull man; the two sons she raises bring her nothing but heartache and a deepening sense of inadequacy. The only thing that provides her with any excitement and satisfaction is catching glimpses of herself in the novels and short stories of her old boyfriend, now a dashing, world-class celebrity.

I've always thought Fitzgerald portrayed women rather shabbily -- shallow, cruel, doomed -- but Genevra is touched that he still cares. "I only knew that finding myself in a clipping gave me a forbidden thrill," she says, "as if I were leading a secret life. I was sixteen again, poised at the top of the staircase, looking down at a dozen male feet. All I had to do was choose the pair I wanted."

There's considerable melodrama toward the end (as there is in The Great Gatsby), but, sadly, something keeps this novel from reaching the kind of emotional poignancy one wants from Fitzgerald's muse. It may be that Preston succeeds too well, stays too faithful to her narrator, who remains a rather bland, self-absorbed woman. What would be left, after all, if the shimmering gauze of Fitzgerald's style were pulled away? Now we know.

Working on the manuscript in 1924, Maxwell Perkins, Fitzgerald's editor at Scribner, noted that The Great Gatsby succeeds so spectacularly only because of its narrator. Nick Carraway "is more of a spectator than an actor," he wrote. "This puts the reader under the point of observation on a higher level than that on which the characters stand and at a distance that gives perspective." That suggests what's missing from Gatsby's Girl: Genevra simply cannot have the kind of poetic voice that renders her life both glorious and tragic. Finding out what "really happened" to her makes for an interesting story, but "a distance that gives perspective" might have made it great.

Reviewed by Ron Charles
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Inspired by the ephemeral but intense historical romance between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his first love, Chicago debutante Ginevra King, Preston bases her sexy, self-centered title character both on Fitzgerald's crush and the female characters (Daisy Buchanan, etc.) for which she was his muse. Ginevra Perry is the spoiled 16-year-old expert flirt who catches Scott Fitzgerald's fancy in 1916 in this gracefully written if drifting novel. The first part of the book excerpts the earnest, epistolary romance between the Lake Forest, Ill., society girl and her less prosperous suitor while she's at boarding school in Connecticut and he's at Princeton. Fickle Ginevra ditches Scott for handsome but dull aviator Billy Granger, with whom she is doomed to a "dried-out husk" of a marriage, but privately continues to keep tabs on Scott while reading his novels for signs of herself in his female characters. This novel, which Ginevra narrates in a mannered, period voice, follows her into her late 30s and strives to echo the sense of loss and promise gone wrong found in Fitzgerald's books. Preston (Jackie by Josie) launches the story from a clever conceit, but the narrator's lack of self-reflection and the gentle arc of her cushioned if not always happy life make for a listless read. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Preston reimagines the life of Ginevra King, F. Scott Fitzgerald's first love, changing her name to Ginevra Perry and positing that Ginevra followed Fitzgerald's career and work with interest. In this novel, Fitzgerald meets Ginevra at a party in St. Paul, where she is visiting her boarding-school roommate. The two hit it off and correspond for eight months with only one meeting, until Ginevra's affections cool when Scott comes to visit her at her home in Lake Forest, Illinois. Ginevra turns her attention to Bill Granger, a solid but unimaginative aviator, whom she marries at only 18. Life with Bill and their two children is not the grand romance Ginevra envisioned, and as Fitzgerald's literary star rises, she wonders what life with him would have been like. When she finds herself depicted in his novels and stories, it is clear Scott has never stopped thinking about Ginevra either. Preston's Ginevra is romantic and vain, but she matures somewhat through trying to care for her unstable younger son. An evocative and lively tale. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue

Scott Fitzgerald’s daughter called long distance, out of the blue. Her voice sounded apologetic, as if she was afraid I wouldn’t remember who he was. She explained that she had had no idea how to get in touch with me. She decided to give the number in his old telephone book a try, even though Scott had been dead for ten years. “I can’t believe you’re still in the same place, Mrs. Granger.” That made me sit down, hard, on the hall bench. Scott had bounced around from St. Paul to New York to Paris to Baltimore to Hollywood, and here I was, still in the same house where he’d come for a visit, back in 1916. “I’m not Mrs. Granger anymore,” I said. “Now I’m Mrs. John Pullman.” At least that part had changed.
She told me her name had changed too, to Scottie Lanahan, and she lived on a farm in Chevy Chase. Judging from all the racket in the background, she had a couple of small children and a dog. “My father always used to talk about you. He said you were the first girl he ever loved.” “I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to him,” I said lightly, as if I hadn’t had years of regrets about the way I treated Scott.
“He said you threw him over without a second thought.” She let out a merry little laugh, as if she didn’t take any of her father’s heartbreaks too seriously.“ Anyway, that’s why I’m calling. I’m sorting through Daddy’s papers to give to the library at Princeton, and I found something I know he would want you to have.” “What?” I asked, thinking maybe it was one of my letters, even though he was supposed have destroyed them all.
“Let’s just say it’s something unusual. You’ll have to see for yourself,” she said in a teasing way. It reminded me of the game Scott used on girls at parties. “I’m thinking of two words that describe you,” he’d say, “can you guess?” “I’m going to be in Chicago next week and I was hoping I could give it to you in person. I’ve always wanted to meet you.” I tried to think of someplace cheerful and uncomplicated to meet, in case Scottie was prone to cocktails and mournful moods like her father. “How about the Walnut Room at Marshall Field’s? You’ll be my guest, of course. The Welsh rarebit is famous.” “My favorite.” There was a huge clatter in the background, like a stack of pots and pans falling off a top shelf.
“Uh-oh,” said a small voice.
“Better go,” Scottie said. “See you next week. At the Walnut Room. I want to hear all about you and Daddy. Your version.” I hung up the phone and studied the front hallway, trying to remember what it had looked like that summer Scott visited. The house was brand new then and still had all the fripperies my father had insisted Mr. Shaw include. The iron balusters had been gold-leafed, the black-and-white marble tiles were hard-waxed and buffed once a week by Mrs. Coates, the privet by the front door was clipped into poodle balls. Daddy had bought a second-rate salon portrait at auction to hang in the stairwell—three sons of some unknown Austrian aristocrat, dressed in ostrich feathers and satin pantaloons, with oddly enlarged heads.
My image of Scott when he’d stepped through the front door came in disconnected fragments. His white linen suit was rumpled across the back, and his collar had a ring of grime from the long train ride. His hair was bright blond, like a Dutch boy’s. The chin and nose were strong, but hadn’t firmed up into the famous profile yet. He dropped his battered suitcase on the marble floor with a bang and surveyed the hallway as if it were a cathedral— first staring up at the ceiling and then rotating slowly to take it all in. Then his girlish mouth pulled back into a tight grin, as if he was trying not to laugh. Even though Scott’s family lived in a rented flat in St. Paul, he could see that an Italianate villa smack-dab in the middle of the prairie was pretentious. Later, after he’d had a couple of my father’s gin and tonics, he announced that Lake Forest consisted of nothing more than the palaces of meatpackers.
I could remember Scott’s letters more clearly than his face, which wasn’t surprising. I saw Scott only a few times, but there had been dozens and dozens of letters. Each sheet stamped with the Princeton seal, the letters so thick that the envelopes bloated like a puffer fish and needed extra stamps. For a while, I found one every day in my wooden mail cubby at Westover. The letters seemed clever at first, filled with the flattery and clippings of his latest in the Tiger Lit.—he was the only boy I’d ever met who fancied himself a “writer.” But then he came for a visit to Lake Forest, and under Daddy’s judgmental gaze, Scott and his avalanche of love letters began to seem foolish, tiresome. And I’d met someone more dashing, at least in my sixtteen-year-old opinion—Billy Granger.
The subject of Scott’s letters was bound to come up when I had lunch with Scottie, and I’d have to admmmmmit the truth. That a week after Scott’s visit in August 1916, I’d gathered his letters into a heavy, wobbly stack, carried them down the back stairs, and dumped them in the trash can outside the kitchen door. I could still see the cream envelopes with the black- and-orange crest landing on a mound of coffee grounds and eggshells. My excuses would sound lame. He asked me to destroy his letters, said he was afraid I’d use them as “incriminating evidence,” which was such nonsense. How could I have ever guessed that the Princeton boy who wrote silly songs and poems would turn into a famous author?
Scottie had probably read the description of our meeting in This Side of Paradise: She paused at the top of the staircase, like a diver on a springboard or a leading lady on opening night—something like that. So typical of Scott, to take a punch party at a shabby country club and fill it with flickering lamplight and romantic interludes. To take a stuck-up pre-debutante and turn her into a noble creature capable of deep feelings.
I wondered what memento of our romance Scottie had found in her father’s papers—a clipping about the party at the Town and Country Club in the St. Paul paper, a ticket stub for Nobody Home, the sash from the Hawaiian costume I’d worn the night I broke it off with him? I had my own secret collection of mementos about Scott, hidden away on the back shelf of a cedar closet behind a pile of unused evening bags. But I wouldn’t share those with anyone—not his daughter, and certainly not the Princeton library.
I would tell Scottie my version of F. Scott Fitzgerald, without the moonlight.
The story began in the dormitory of Westover School, second floor, last door on the left. I could see myself then, a girl strolling jauntily down a long, dim hallway, her high heels clacking on the bare wood floor, a pale blue moiré jacket slung over one shoulder like a college boy. I was two months shy of my sixteenth birthday and stood a pinch below five foot four. I had been told I was pretty far too often for my own good, but my only unusual features were a thick coil of dark hair and large, doe-brown eyes that could turn wistful. Dramatic coloring was my claim to fame back in the days when girls weren’t allowed to wear rouge or lipstick.
I was still bristling from the injustice of my father’s words as he put me on the train. He’d said that Westover was my final chance to prove my character and warned me not to dilly-dally at Grand Central or I’d miss my connection to Middlebury.
I do have a good character, I fumed. I am good on the inside, and I never say things I know aren’t true. Sometimes I’m too emotional and don’t think things through, but why is that such a character flaw? But I had dawdled for a few minutes, to have some cinnamon toast in a real English teashop with organdy curtains and to window shop, and missed my connection. I caught the next one, but I was three hours late.

Copyright © 2006 by Caroline Preston. Reprinted with permission by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0618537252
• ISBN 13: 9780618537259
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256