The Great Gatsby Summary

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald 

Summary

Our narrator, Nick Carraway, begins the book by giving us some advice of his father's about not criticizing others. (But—but what if they're lying, possibly sociopathic murderers?) And now it's time to meet our cast of characters: Nick's second cousin once removed Daisy Buchanan; her large and aggressive husband, Tom Buchanan; and Jordan Baker. Jordan's a girl, and she quickly becomes a romantic interest for our narrator. Probably because she's the only girl around who isn't his cousin.

While the Buchanans live on the fashionable East Egg (we're talking Long Island, NY in the 1920's, by the way), Nick lives on the less-elite but not-too-shabby West Egg, which sits across the bay from its twin town. We (and Nick) are soon fascinated by a certain Mr. Jay Gatsby, a wealthy and mysterious man who owns a huge mansion next door to Nick and spends a good chunk of his evenings standing on his lawn and looking at an equally mysterious green light across the bay. Ookay.

Tom takes Nick to the city to show off his mistress, a woman named Myrtle Wilson who is, of course, married. Myrtle's husband, George, is a passive, working class man who owns an auto garage and is oblivious to his wife's extramarital activities. Nick, who has some good old-fashioned values from his childhood growing up in the "Middle West," is none too impressed by Tom.

Back on West Egg, this Gatsby fellow has been throwing absolutely killer parties, where everyone and his mother can come and get wasted and try to figure out how Gatsby got…