Unfortunately this book would not download to my kindle and I have problems reading books on my phone app. So I haven’t read the whole book yet.
I think the premise gives the reader a unique take and viewpoint from the working class, but I don’t think another viewpoint was necessary as the classic stood in its own class for a reason.

A working class man’s view of the Great Gatsby. This was a new way to look at the events of the original (although for me that was always the viewpoint I was looking at events from!). It works and is well written. But another rewrite of a classic? I’m not sure it’s really necessary.

"The Great Gatsby" is one of my favorite books, so I was excited to read "The Last Green Light", by George Foy. The story did not disappoint; I absolutely loved it. I will always consider it a companion book to "The Great Gatsby", and I recommend it highly.

I was both eager and hesitant to read this latest retelling of Fitzgerald’s classic novel. I’ve read other iterations of Gatsby and have mostly been underwhelmed, but something about Foy’s take seemed intriguing.

Set primarily in the Valley of Ashes, readers get a chance to meet new characters and revisit those who are more familiar. Jon Laine, an old acquaintance of Jay Gatsby steps into the shoes of narrator, giving readers an inside look into Gatsby & Wolfshiem’s ‘business’ dealings. Like Nick, Jon is from the Midwest. He agrees to come East to help an old friend and to make some good money, but we eventually realize that just as Nick is running from a failed relationship, Jon is running from his own family trauma.

Worlds collide when Jon is introduced to George Wilson and Jordan Baker, both players in Gatsby’s bootlegging game. These connections allow Foy to blend his new story with Fitzgerald’s old one. While I love that we get a fuller picture of George, I feel like Foy paints him as unstable too early on, taking away some of the vulnerability I see in him in the original novel.

This new version is also pretty tough on Fitzgerald’s core characters. While most of us are likely fine with the criticism he levies on Tom, Daisy, and Jordan, I think he goes a little too far in his censuring of Nick and Gatsby. I’m no Nick fan, but I don’t think his crimes are quite at the level of the East Egg set. And as for Gatsby, yes, he does get caught up in chasing his obsession, sometimes using the people around him to get closer to his goal, but I’ve always felt like his relationship with Nick in the original was sincere.

While the new parts of the story are really well done and are woven in seamlessly with Fitzgerald’s story, I found myself wishing for more new and less old. It also felt like there were a fair amount of breaks in the fourth wall where Foy stopped to tell readers what they should think about a situation rather than letting his own beautiful descriptions tell the story.

Fortunately, the end of the book was, to me, so spectacularly written that it made me look past these flaws. At the end, the story really becomes Jon’s story, nudging the original version into a supporting role. Jon’s vulnerability, grief, and guilt are real. He genuinely cares about fairness even though his life has been anything but. He owns his mistakes, and recognizes that trying to escape them is impossible; you can only find a way to live with them. Jon is everything I always wanted in a narrator that Nick could never quite manage to be. And that alone is reason enough to read this book.

The Great Gatsby and the Last Green Light are twins. The same story told by different people at opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum. . The privileged Nick Carraway's point of view from Great Gatsby shifts in this book to Jon, a working man who met Jay Gatsby before his incredible wealth, the wealth he saw brought others power and permanence. Jon is employed by the dazzling and mercurial Gatsby and it is as though we, the reader, are more familiar with this viewpoint of an ordinary man, seeing gross waste, lies, assumed racial superiority and at the same time the seduction of such wealth and careless luxury which belies a fascination with the Beau Monde. Behind the shallow Jazz Age parties, champagne cocktails and elegant tailoring are the invisible men and women creating their boss's wealth through toil and dangerous undertakings. Nick Carraway's widowed Finnish cook from the original book gets a name and backstory and is seen dragging heavy baskets of crockery from Gatsby 's garden party to the house to earn enough to live, unseen by drunken, spoiled guests, The message in America is don't stand in the way of a rich man getting richer unless you want to get hurt- jump on board instead and try to get rich yourself, however immoral or illegal. This retelling weaves the same themes together but tells of the poverty and toil that underpinned the wealth and privilege.

Jon Laine, a Finn from Minnesota, received a telegram offering a job with a guaranteed $350 a week. Jon once worked on a tug on the Great Lakes with a young dreamer, Jim Gatz, now restyled as Jay Gatsby. Jay wanted him to captain a yacht in Wolfshiem’s rum-running operation in Prohibition Era New York City. After serving in WWI and fighting for union organization and losing a beloved brother, Jon had lost his high ideals and was ready to take advantage of Jay’s offer.

The undercover business is run out of a garage in the the ash heaps along the Flushing River, the eyes of Dr T. J. Eckleburg’s billboard hovering above like the eyes of God. The crew spend their days playing cards and keeping the yacht Daisy ready to go while waiting to hear about the next job. George Wilson is the mechanic, jealous and volatile, sure his wife Myrtle is stepping out on him.

Jon only gets glimpses of Jay’s life of wealth and excess, the luxury phaeton, the chateau, the gay parties. And the women! He falls for Jordan and is attracted to Stella, Wolfshiem’s secretary and niece. And then there is Daisy Buchanan, blonde like Jordan, married to the man who is seeing Myrtle, and the object of Gatsby’s love.

All of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most memorable scenes and places and people are there, and even nods to his most memorable quotes appear.

And yet this novel stands on its own, with its own memorable characters and quotable text, while deepening the themes that appear in The Great Gatsby. The illusory lure of wealth that brings no peace, the racism, the way those with money trod over the working class without compunction. Instead of Nick Carraway, smitten with Gatsby, Jon has a clearer view; willingly taking his share of the profit, he understands that those on the bottom of society can’t afford to have moral compunction. Jon’s idealism isn’t completely gone; he helps a Finnish speaking widow obtain a better job, bonds with the African American member of the crew, and becomes protective of Young Sam, Stella’s cousin.

Stella Wolfshiem gifts Jon one thing that helps him carry on after a loss that cruelly recalls a past loss. Barach dayan emet, blessed is the one true judge, an acknowledgement that we aren’t in control. Jon also draws comfort from Marcus Aurelius and his Stoic acceptance of life’s vagaries.

George and Myrtle, Jay and Jon were drawn to New York City’s glittering and seductive dream of a better life. Like Nick Carraway at the end of Fitzgerald’s novel, Jon returns to the Midwest and laboring at the bottom of a capitalist system. He brings with him illicit money to help his parents. And he recalls the young man who believed in an America that offered limitless possibilities to those who dared.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.