Wyn Connor and Harriet Kilpatrick were the perfect couple-until Wyn dumped Harriet for reasons she still doesn’t fully understand. Cantor’s title borrows from Daisy’s remark, from Fitzgerald’s original and echoed here, when she was informed her baby was a girl: “a fool-that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” (Sadly, the phrase “a beautiful little fool” is reported to have been what Zelda Fitzgerald uttered when told she had borne a daughter.) Less glittering and lyrical than the original, this Gatsbyretelling reveals more about the women in the story by casting them as humans, not decorative baubles.Ĭantor asks and answers: Who were the real fools in Gatsby’s world?Įxes pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends on their annual summer vacation. Gatsby himself is less of a cipher now that the women are getting their say. Daisy’s motives for marrying (and staying with) the boorish Tom Buchanan are cast in a new light, as is the backstory shadowing Jordan Baker. As Detective Frank Charles-who harbors the secrets and heartaches which so often haunt the lonely detective of mystery novels-untangles the stories told to him by the women who survive Gatsby, the whodunit aspects of the refocused version of Fitzgerald’s rags-to-riches saga gain momentum. Even Myrtle is heard from, however briefly. The storytelling here is done by Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Catherine McCoy (in a promotion from her small original role as the doomed Myrtle Wilson’s sister).

Gatsby’s original narrator, Nick Carraway, swaps his role as narrator for one as a character. Using The Great Gatsby as a springboard, Cantor gives voice to that novel’s female characters as they provide their recollections and interpretations of the events leading up to the murder of one of American fiction’s most enigmatic characters. Several women involved with Jay Gatsby would like to set the record straight.

Beautiful little fools jillian cantor