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So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures Audiobook
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The "Fresh Air" book critic investigates the enduring power of The Great Gatsby -- "The Great American Novel we all think we've read, but really haven't."
Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.
Offering a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great -- and utterly unusual -- So We Read On takes us into archives, high school classrooms, and even out onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel's hidden depths, a journey whose revelations include Gatsby 's surprising debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its rocky path to recognition as a "classic," and its profound commentaries on the national themes of race, class, and gender.
With rigor, wit, and infectious enthusiasm, Corrigan inspires us to re-experience the greatness of Gatsby and cuts to the heart of why we are, as a culture, "borne back ceaselessly" into its thrall. Along the way, she spins a new and fascinating story of her own.
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“NPR reviewer Maureen Corrigan’s voice is familiar and agreeable, and heraccount of her long interest in—and near obsession with—Fitzgerald’s matchlessnovel is a feast for those who share her passion. At ten hours, her discussionof ‘How The Great Gatsby Came to Beand Why It Endures’ is just about the length of the novel itself—and evenshares the cover art of a familiar paperback edition. The novel, Fitzgerald’slife, and a near-century of assessments of both book and author are theinterlocking pieces of a story that is sad, and even pathetic at times, but indozens of ways enhances our affection for both for the novel and its author.”
— AudioFile
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“Corrigan’s research was as intrepid as her analysis is ardent and expert, and she brings fact, thought, feelings, and personal experiences together in a buoyant, illuminating, and affecting narrative about one depthless novel, the transforming art of reading, and the endless tides that tumble together life and literature.”
— Booklist (starred review) -
“A literary love letter…[Corrigan’s] tone is lively and bright and her enthusiasm for the novel is infectious. You’ll feel as if you’re attending a lecture by your favorite prof or chatting with a brainy, bookish friend. Bursting with intellectual energy and fun facts, this paean to the ‘great American novel will appeal to fans of Corrigan’s book critiques and Jazz Age scholars, and will, one hopes, impel readers to pick up the brief work for the first (or fourth, or 14th) time.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
Maureen Corrigan has produced a minor miracle: a book about The Great Gatsby that stands up to Gatsby itself.
— Michael Cunningham -
With her infectious enthusiasm, no one is better at bringing a book to life than Maureen Corrigan. Her vividly personal evocation of Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby is at once a labor of love, the story of a quest, and a mother lode of information and insight. As a biography of a novel, it reads like a novel.
— Morris Dickstein, author of Gates of Eden and Dancing in the Dark -
"So We Read On is a fine book on many levels, almost too many to list. This book is a love story about a book. It's an expression of love for one of the most lyrical and engaging and prescient novels in the English language. Maureen Corrigan writes not only with passion about her subject, she writes with an understanding of America and the elusive goal represented by the green light on Daisy's dock.
— James Lee Burke -
Maureen Corrigan's brilliant Gatsby book takes you on a revealing expedition into the wilds of American literary culture. It might be called How Gatsby became "Great". An intoxicating cocktail of talent, celebrity, gangster noir, and the vicissitudes of reputation that create a classic.
— Ron Rosenbaum, author of The Shakespeare Wars -
Corrigan's eclectic taste and skillful assessment of new writers as well as those long dead are particularly astute.
— USA TODAY -
A brilliant and funny narrative of [Corrigan's] own reading life . . . Utterly original.
— Chicago Tribune -
Immensely likable, eclectic, and dynamic, Corrigan is as adept in her analysis of life as she is in her fresh and significant interpretations of books.
— Booklist -
Corrigan is erudite without being the least bit pretentious... Dipping into Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading is a little like visiting that friend whose house is always full of books and who always sends you home with one you're excited to read.
— Detroit Free-Press
Awards
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A Library Journal Best Book of 2014
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A New York Times Editor’s Choice
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About Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan is the book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, the critic-in-residence at Georgetown University, and winner of the Edgar Award for Criticism. She is the author of Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading.