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The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Presents Gatsby Centennial Readings
On April 10, 2025, The Great Gatsby---widely heralded as among the greatest of all American novels---celebrates its centennial. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society is marking this landmark with a weekly chapter-by-chapter reading of the novel featuring eleven of the most significant American fiction writers of our day. Episodes will be released weekly beginning on February 13. Here is the schedule:
February 13 Chapter 1 Jonathan Franzen
February 20 Chapter 2 Jane Smiley
February 27 Chapter 3 Ann Beattie
March 6 Chapter 4 Joseph O’Neill
March 13 Chapter 5 Robert Olen Butler
March 20 Chapter 6 Richard Russo
March 27 Chapter 7 Kim Stanley Robinson/ Maxine Hong Kingston
April 3 Chapter 8 Francine Prose
April 10 Chapter 9 Gish Jen/ Alice McDermott
Episodes are also available for download on the Fitzgerald Society website (www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org) and on the Society's YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@f.scottfitzgeraldsociety8488). It's truly a different and unique experience luxuriating in Fitzgerald's luminescent prose hearing his cadences read aloud by these voices.
The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Presents Gatsby Centennial Readings
Gatsby@100 Chapter 6 featuring Richard Russo
Richard Russo is the author of ten novels, three collections of short stories, and two books of non-fiction. His most recent book is his 2023 novel Somebody’s Fool. Life and Art, a collection of his essays, will be published in May 2025. His 2001 novel Empire Falls won the Pulitzer Prize and his story “Horseman” was included in the 2007 volume of The Best American Short Stories.
In 2017 he received France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine; and in 2018 he received the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature. He wrote the teleplay for the HBO adaptation of Empire Falls; and he has written or co-written the screenplays for several films. His 1997 novel Straight Man was adapted into the 2023 TV series Lucky Hank.
As the reignited affair between Gatsby and Daisy sparks rumors in West Egg, chapter 6 of Gatsby finds narrator Nick Carraway revealing to readers the origin story of Long Island's mysterious millionaire. Tension mounts when Tom Buchanan shows up to Gatsby's mansion one day. Tom and Daisy subsequently attend one of Gatsby's parties, and the man who has dedicated the last five years of his life to winning Daisy back doubts whether he can recapture her. The chapter ends with one of the most beautiful passages in American literature that captures both Fitzgerald's and Gatsby's gossamer romanticism.