So We Read On

How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures

By: Maureen Corrigan

Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan

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.

Critic reviews

"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

Praise for LEAVE ME ALONE, I'M READING:

"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

Amazing and rich

I am so grateful to have “read” this book. I am coteaching Gatsby for my second and last time because I am retiring, and it has been so helpful. I have walked listening to it and had to stop to take notes on my phone. Thank you, Maureen Corrigan for so many lessons!

I love everything Gatsby

Okay, so like tell me more about the gay interpretations of Gatsby? This feels like an introduction for me to go a bit deeper but didn’t really give any satisfying answers. Now, on the other hand, there is this audible original that is free on “who is jay Gatsby” and goes into this odd theory — and that gave me more than this but. It wasn’t bad. It felt like that tourist attraction she went on at Gatsby bay or what not. It showed me all these cool things but didn’t go deeper. I want more!! But maybe that’s the point is that it’s inexhaustible. It’s deep, it’s riveting and the audience wants more. Yup, I agree. Fast read, that’s a five star for me.

Exquisite - A Journey Into Fitzgerald and Gatsby

It’s been a few years since I read Gatsby and a friend recommended this book to me.

It’s a wonderful book excellently read by the author.

Enough review though... I’ve dug out my 20 year old paperback of Gatsby and I’m starting to reread it and revel in it.

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Charming!

This is a charming treatment of the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life, and the author’s own experiences. It blends together pleasantly and encourages subsequent listens to the book in question.