The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay

After a racist tragedy upends Nick Carrington’s life in 1920s Oklahoma, he moves to Harlem to live with his cousin Daisy’s family and attend the prestigious West Egg Academy, an integrated prep school founded by the white father of biracial classmate Jay Gatsby. Nick, a Black aspiring journalist, soon finds himself ostracized and bullied by his wealthy white classmates, as West Egg Academy’s promised racial harmony reveals itself to be mostly fiction. As a result, Nick creates his own alternative school newspaper to give voice to the experiences of West Egg students of color. Thanks to his investigative reporting as well as his cousin Daisy’s political organizing, Nick also ends up in high-stakes situations involving bootlegging, arson, and police brutality. His budding romance with Jay Gatsby and growing understanding of his own queerness also complicate his position at school as both boys work to keep their connection a secret from classmates. Douglass’s novel is rich with historical details, such as Marcus Garvey’s influential UNIA movement and the devastation of the Tulsa Race Massacre, but the characters are pulled in too many directions to make for a cohesive story.