From award-winning author Nghi Vo comes Don't Sleep with the Dead , a standalone companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful , her acclaimed reimagining of The Great Gatsby .
"A vibrant and queer reinvention of F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age classic. . . . I was captivated from the first sentence."―NPR on The Chosen and the Beautiful
Nick Carraway―paper soldier and novelist―has found a life and a living watching the mad magical spectacle of New York high society in the late thirties. He's good at watching, and he's even better at pretending: pretending to be straight, pretending to be human, pretending he's forgotten the events of that summer in 1922.
On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone's been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face one very dark night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn't done with him.
In all paper there is memory, and Nick's ghost has come home.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
This haunting stand-alone novella follows characters from The Chosen and the Beautiful, Vo's magical, queer reimagining of The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway has made a life in late-1930s New York City, working as a journalist and novelist and pretending that everything's fine. Pretending is all that Nick has done for years: he's a paper soldier created to protect one now long gone, slipping into Prospect Park like many other men in the city, haunted by what happened in 1922. When a chance escape from a volatile situation brings an encounter from the past, Nick realizes that the past is not done with him. Paper is a good medium for memories, and Jay Gatsby, dead and damned, has returned. Vo's prose is magical and visceral during Nick's search for the truth, and readers learn more about the past Nick has had to absorb but not live. VERDICT Vo once again vividly brings to life the world of Jazz Age New York City, intertwined with magic, devils, and ghosts of the past.--Kristi Chadwick
Publishers Weekly Review
In Hugo Award winner Vo's mesmerizing companion to The Chosen and the Beautiful, Great Gatsby narrator Nick Carraway, here imagined as a paper doll brought to life via magic, encounters a ghost from his past. Nearly 20 years after Jay Gatsby's death, Carraway hears Gatsby's unmistakable voice during a near-fatal encounter, launching him on a supernatural quest to uncover what became of Gatsby's essence. As Carraway delves deeper into this mystery, he confronts unsettling truths about his own past and reckons with how the magic that keeps him alive also continues to pick away at him, preying on his desires, memories, and pain. While familiarity with both The Chosen and the Beautiful and The Great Gatsby enriches the reading experience, this haunting tale stands confidently apart from its predecessors and newcomers will have no trouble diving into Vo's lyrical exploration of identity, longing, and the price of immortality. Meanwhile, the expansion of the paper magic system, previously glimpsed through Jordan Baker's perspective, adds fascinating depth to this alternate history. It's an unadulterated joy to return to Vo's queer, phantasmagoric take on Fitzgerald's world. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary. (Apr.)
Booklist Review
A few years after the events of The Chosen and the Beautiful (2021), Nick Carraway still hasn't found his footing. Paper man that he is, he's always felt a little fragile in the world, and now in the late 1930s, the world itself feels like it could break apart at any moment. But the hardest bit is that Nick has never let go of the summer of 1922, and of Gatsby. He wants to know where Gatsby's gone, and he's willing to sell his soul to do so. This novella extends the magical world that Vo forged around F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, depicting shady deals with demons, covert magic, and the same old social biases as ever. Nick's journey in this novella is painful and emotional, the story of an unrequited love so self-destructive that it could bring about Nick's very end, and yet he's past caring about that. Vo's writing is as charming and rich as ever, and Nick easily carries the story as protagonist, all while giving little Easter eggs and nods to Fitzgerald's original.
TextDescription: 224 pISBN: