Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith, a book that imagines the life of the character of Nick Carraway before he ends up as narrator of ‘The Great Gatsby’.
This blog tour is organised by Oldcastle Books/No Exit Press and I am thrilled to have been asked to join the tour!
From the Publisher:
This rich and imaginative novel from critically acclaimed author Michael Farris Smith breathes new life into a character that many know only from the periphery. Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby’s world, he was at the centre of a very different story – one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed first-hand, Nick embarks on a redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance – doomed from the very beginning – to the dizzying frenzy of New
Orleans, rife with its own flavour of debauchery and violence.
‘NICK is so pitch-perfect, so rich in character and
action, so remarkable a combination of elegance
and passion, so striking in felt originality that I am
almost tempted to say – book gods forgive me – that
The Great Gatsby will forever feel like NICK’s splendid
but somewhat paler sequel. Almost tempted to say. But
I have no intention of taking back the sincere passing
thought of it. Michael Farris Smith’s book is that good’
Robert Olen Butler
2021 WILL MARK 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S BIRTH
‘Anybody who believes that the war is
over when the enemy surrenders and
the troops come home needs to read
Michael Farris Smith’s masterful new
novel NICK. Its stark, unvarnished
truth will haunt you’
Richard Russo
‘Stylish, evocative, haunting and
wholly original, Michael Farris Smith
has paid tribute to a classic and made
it his own. A remarkable achievement
that should sit at the very top of
everyone’s must-read list’
Chris Whitaker
My Review:
I’m a huge fan of ‘The Great Gatsby’, so I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to read this book, a kind of ‘prequel’ to the 1925 novel. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book focused on the story of Nick Carraway, the narrator of F Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’. In the original novel, a few things are revealed about the character – the fact he is a Midwesterner, the fact he served in World War I and the fact he finds himself in West Egg (where ‘Gatsby’ is set) aged 29. This gives Michael Farris Smith considerable scope to imagine Nick’s life up to that point and it is a challenge he seems to embrace wholeheartedly.
The story opens in Paris where Nick is on leave from fighting in the trenches of World War I. He meets a young woman and the initial part of the book is their (short) relationship before Nick is called back to combat. A period in the trenches follows – brutal, grim and shocking – before Nick goes to New Orleans and starts to search for his life back in America.
The varied settings of the novel are fascinating as Nick explores a corner of wartime Paris, the trenches and tunnels of the front line in France, the seedy quarter of New Orleans where the speakeasies and brothels are, before finally moving on to West Egg and his future. These places – a theatre attic, a bar, an apartment – are vividly evoked and make Nick’s story jump from the page.
I don’t want to give any spoilers, but it is clear that Nick is suffering from PTSD and a lot of his subsequent experiences are tinged with tragedy. This is a novel that doesn’t shy away from some big themes, from war to grief, revenge to violence, love to loss. Some of the novel, especially the scenes in the trenches and the post-war life of war veteran Judah, is hard to read but extremely powerful.
The writing is vivid and Michael Farris Smith presents a range of characters who engage the reader in their lives and hopes and dreams. Personally, I was most interested in the lives of the women of the novel – the survival instincts of both Colette and Ella in their different ways was interesting. I’d have loved to read more of Ella’s story as she was a mysterious figure in the novel in a lot of ways.
There were a couple of things I found a little jarring that took me out of the richly-imagined world of ‘Nick’ but I think these may be personal things. I found reported speech to be written oddly – totally a stylistic choice by the writer, but one I found tricky to follow sometimes. I also was thrown by a reference to possums – I won’t elaborate but it felt unusual in the context.
So, the big question. Has Michael Farris Smith successfully recreated a Nick Carraway that fits with the character written by F Scott Fitzgerald? My honest answer is that I don’t know. I suspect I would read ‘The Great Gatsby’ with a different view of Nick now, but I’d say the main ingredients are there in Smith’s portrayal. His Nick is honest, introspective and often an observer even in his own life – all features of Fitzgerald’s narrator too. The decision to narrate ‘Nick’ in the third person (as opposed to first person in ‘Gatsby’) escapes the need to recreate Nick’s exact voice, but I’d say these two Nicks could credibly be the same person.
Overall, I would say that I was caught up in Nick’s story and enjoyed the narrative decisions made by Smith to explain how Nick comes to be in West Egg at the start of ‘Gatsby’, plus his emotional baggage. It isn’t always a comfortable read, but I did find it immersive and interesting. If you love ‘The Great Gatsby’, this is definitely worth reading and may give you a different understanding of Nick. If you haven’t read ‘The Great Gatsby’, this is absolutely worth picking up on its own merits. Either way, I’d recommend it.
About the Author:
No Exit Press also publish Michael Farris Smith’s novels Desperation Road, The Fighter and most recently Blackwood. Farris Smith has been a finalist for the Gold Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix des Lectrices in France, and his essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.
