2021 marks the 125th anniversary of F.Scott Fitzgerald and to celebrate his lifetime and work, Michael Farris Smith has given voice to one of the most famous unreliable narrators of all time…Nick Carraway.

Giving him his own story, NICK tells the tale of the man before Gatsby, breathing life into a character that is famous for being on the side lines.

Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby’s world, he was at the centre of a very different story – one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed first-hand, Nick embarks on a redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance – doomed from the very beginning – to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavour of debauchery and violence.

As you all know, I’m a huge lover of classics and The Great Gatsby has to be one of my favourite books because in just over 200 pages, the most incredible story takes place. In NICK, the story is just as exciting and was the perfect escapism I needed. Very different from The Great Gatsby, NICK is a far more focused on the violence and lawlessness of pre-prohibition America, and provides a stunning depiction of life post-WW1. With compelling characters and a sense of uneasiness, this book beautifully and cyclically provides a real understanding of the loss and guilt caused by war.

By the end, I was ready to read The Great Gatsby for the one millionth time! Thank you to No Exit Press for approving my advanced copy on NetGalley.

Anyone who's read The Great Gatsby, or even just seen a film adaptation, will be familiar with Nick Carraway - Daisy Buchanan's second cousin who accidentally rents a house across the bay from her, and right next to Gatsby's huge mansion - but beyond his role as narrator he doesn't really exist.
For Fitzgerald, Nick seems little more than a convenient plot device, sitting watching a love triangle tragedy unfold around him, privy to the desires and actions of all sides, fully committed to none.

Now Michael Farris Smith has brought Nick into the limelight. From his Mid-West childhood, where his life stretched planned and orderly in front of him, through the chaos of World War 1 trenches, and a doomed love affair in Paris, to the violent saloons of New Orleans, Nick makes his winding way to a small house in West Egg on Long Island, and the green light shining across the Bay.

I'm normally a bit wary of 'spin off' books, which give characters lives way beyond the ones dreamed of by the original authors, but I read an online article by Michael Farris Smith about the inspiration behind Nick, and it somehow appealed.

If you saw The Great Gatsby as a romantic tale of unrequited love, played out against a backdrop of fabulous parties, huge mansions, and flash cars, then this probably isn't for you. It's far grittier and more violent - like Hemingway rather than Fitzgerald - but I very much enjoyed it. It's a story that could well have stood on its own - naive young man traumatized by war, and unable to fit back into the world he left behind - but being the story of Nick Carraway gives it an extra twist. We know where he's going to end up; just not how.

The Great Gatsby is now out of copyright so there are bound to be an endless number of spin-offs. Get in early and read this one.

I'm a huge fan of 'The Great Gatsby', so I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to read this book, a kind of 'prequel' to the 1925 novel. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book focused on the story of Nick Carraway, the narrator of F Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby'. In the original novel, a few things are revealed about the character - the fact he is a Midwesterner, the fact he served in World War I and the fact he finds himself in West Egg (where 'Gatsby' is set) aged 29. This gives Michael Farris Smith considerable scope to imagine Nick's life up to that point and it is a challenge he seems to embrace wholeheartedly.

The story opens in Paris where Nick is on leave from fighting in the trenches of World War I. He meets a young woman and the initial part of the book is their (short) relationship before Nick is called back to combat. A period in the trenches follows - brutal, grim and shocking - before Nick goes to New Orleans and starts to search for his life back in America.

The varied settings of the novel are fascinating as Nick explores a corner of wartime Paris, the trenches and tunnels of the front line in France, the seedy quarter of New Orleans where the speakeasies and brothels are, before finally moving on to West Egg and his future. These places - a theatre attic, a bar, an apartment - are vividly evoked and make Nick's story jump from the page.

I don't want to give any spoilers, but it is clear that Nick is suffering from PTSD and a lot of his subsequent experiences are tinged with tragedy. This is a novel that doesn't shy away from some big themes, from war to grief, revenge to violence, love to loss. Some of the novel, especially the scenes in the trenches and the post-war life of war veteran Judah, is hard to read but extremely powerful.

The writing is vivid and Michael Farris Smith presents a range of characters who engage the reader in their lives and hopes and dreams. Personally, I was most interested in the lives of the women of the novel - the survival instincts of both Colette and Ella in their different ways was interesting. I'd have loved to read more of Ella's story as she was a mysterious figure in the novel in a lot of ways.

There were a couple of things I found a little jarring that took me out of the richly-imagined world of 'Nick' but I think these may be personal things. I found reported speech to be written oddly - totally a stylistic choice by the writer, but one I found tricky to follow sometimes. I also was thrown by a reference to possums - I won't elaborate but it felt unusual in the context.

So, the big question. Has Michael Farris Smith successfully recreated a Nick Carraway that fits with the character written by F Scott Fitzgerald? My honest answer is that I don't know. I suspect I would read 'The Great Gatsby' with a different view of Nick now, but I'd say the main ingredients are there in Smith's portrayal. His Nick is honest, introspective and often an observer even in his own life - all features of Fitzgerald's narrator too. The decision to narrate 'Nick' in the third person (as opposed to first person in 'Gatsby') escapes the need to recreate Nick's exact voice, but I'd say these two Nicks could credibly be the same person.

Overall, I would say that I was caught up in Nick's story and enjoyed the narrative decisions made by Smith to explain how Nick comes to be in West Egg at the start of 'Gatsby', plus his emotional baggage. It isn't always a comfortable read, but I did find it immersive and interesting. If you love 'The Great Gatsby', this is definitely worth reading and may give you a different understanding of Nick. If you haven't read 'The Great Gatsby', this is absolutely worth picking up on its own merits. Either way, I'd recommend it.

Thank you to Netgalley, Michael Farris Smith and Oldcastle for this ARC in return for my honest review. Clevery written, this book drew me in word by word. It's an imagining of Nick pre-Gatsby and serves as a very suitable companion novel. Bound to become a modern day masterpiece. Heavy with atmosphere, it's simply stunning.

Firstly, a huge thank you to No Exit Press and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, I had to mark this as DNF at 69%. Although Farris Smith really captured the complexity of Nick Carraway, and there were some brilliant scenes and some very raw depictions of war and post-war America, for some reason the novel didn't click with me the same way it has for so many other readers. Whilst this novel does make Nick a much more interesting character than the Nick we meet in 'The Great Gatsby', I was unable to connect with him on the same level as Farris Smith has. Additionally, the pacing felt slightly off for me partly because I wasn't as drawn into these characters overall.

It definitely feels as though I am missing something great with all the wonderful reviews this novel is getting. Whilst I may not be able to finish this one, I'm very interested in checking out Farris Smith's other works as I did really enjoy his writing style as a whole.

'The Great Gatsby' is a masterpiece and one of my favourite books, the opulence of the Jazz Age shining through in Fitzgerald's beautifully crafted prose and enchanting characters. I am pleased to say that with 'Nick', Michael Farris Smith has entered a worthy prequel into the Gatsby canon, living up to the legacy of its source material.

Nick Caraway was always a mysterious character to me. We get hints about his past experiences but he always seems to be on the outside, an observer rather than an active participant. In the first half of 'Nick', we get insight into Nick's defining past moments serving in WWI. Not only do we see the trauma of the battlefield but we realise Nick has been shaped by a Daisy-esque lost love of his own. It is in this phase of the novel he seems to have the most agency, trying to get a grip of his own fate in the horrific trenches and tunnels of WWI France. (This peril is undermined slightly about the fact that Nick has to survive for the sequel!)

The second section of the novel sees Nick in New Orleans, drifting and trying to establish his purpose in life, haunted by his past trauma in war. It is here Farris Smith introduces Collette and Judah who are the most interesting of the new characters in the novel. They do not reach the heights of the fascination caused by the enigmatic Gatsby but their story is one of high drama and heartache. We see Nick start to become an observer, following their story, and becoming more of the Nick we recognise from Fitzgerald's original work.

Overall, the writing is beautiful, the story is thrilling and the characters are well realised. I also thought the ending was absolutely spot on and a fitting homage. Farris Smith has written something really special here and I am glad I gave it a chance. 5 dazzling stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm really sorry, but I had to give up on this book. I started it and put it down about three times before finally accepting defeat. I feel like while the author wanted to redo Fitzgerald, his writing was an imitation of Hemingway and that is a tough thing to get right.
Clearly, others really enjoyed this, but I couldn't get past the run on sentences and it felt like he was trying too hard to use someone else's voice that it just didn't sound authentic.

The author writes of reading The Great Gatsby three times in his life and how the first time he read it it made no impact. I first read Fitzgerald's novel as a teenager and it was one of the most memorable pieces of literature that had a huge and lasting impact on me. I have lost count of the times I have re-read it and at least once a year I pay a little tribute to Gatsby and Co and curl up with the book.
So I was intrigued to read this prequel. There was a lot of scope to develop ideas about Nick - a favourite for me. How he came to be at that place in time as neighbour to Jay Gatsby and his hot summer of parties and personal dramas.
Nick's involvement with the war is stated and and I found this first part of the novel the best. The idea of Ella, the woman he falls in love with in Paris and how he loses her drew me in. Paris is well described against the sites of war that Nick must return to as a soldier. Ella then disappears following trauma and Nick's loss of course reflects Gatsby's life long search for Daisy around which The Great Gatsby is based.
There were descriptions too of his parents and possibly a mental breakdown for Nick's mother and all of that was good to use as background for Nick's own characteristics. He is caring and quiet, perhaps scared of confrontation and also longing for love.
However the whole section written in New Orleans where Nick goes after the war rather than returning home I just could not relate too.. Nick is a passive observer against the lives of Colette (the better character) and her dysfunctional life. When Nick threw away his uniform this seemed symbolic yet in New Orleans he disappeared in my eyes and reading into the bystander for events. Were there real friendships? How would that part of his life affect his future view of things?
Finally after being asked to come home by his father "I will expect you" Nick spends the festive season alone with only those also alone in Chicago. When he does return home for "2 years of purgatory" the whole time is just rattled through. Did he meet anyone he might have loved? Hints at him writing about France and New Orleans are not explored and apparently the effect of the war did not have that much impact - really? After some of the things Nick experienced he along with many soldiers had physical and emotional damage for life.
Overall then although the novel started with potential I found it ran totally out of steam. The fact that the cover shows two eyes - the image of the eyes of Doctor T J Eckleburg that are on the billboard in the Valley of Ashes in The Great Gatsby seem to me to show that the author looks to bring in Gatsby readers but with little context. Afraid I will return to Fitzgerald's novel to reacquaint myself with Nick Carraway.

NICK, is an imagining of Nick Carraway’s life before the events of the American classic ‘The Great Gatsby’, in which Carraway was the narrator.

In NICK we witness the horrors of WW1 as experienced by Carraway, a young man, deep in the war trenches in France. During a brief respite in the war, he meets a girl in Paris, stays with her briefly and loses her as he returns to the battlefield. After the war, he tries in vain to find the girl. Dejected and disappointed, he returns to American but delays his return home. Instead he sidetracks to Frenchtown, New Orleans and mixes with a rowdy bunch of people, whose only pastimes, it seems, are booze and sex. Debauchery and violence define the lifestyle here. A seemingly dissipated life until he returns home.

I tried to read The Great Gatsby but after a few pages I had to stop as I wasn’t captivated by the beginning of the story. When NICK came along as a sort of prequel, I thought, “that’s quite intriguing, maybe I should read this first”. I might change my mind about reading The Great Gatsby but that didn’t happen.

I find the storyline interesting but rather depressing. When I read the chapters on Carraway’s wild forays in Frenchtown, I seriously thought the young man had lost his marbles but finally, and thankfully, he did come to his senses. I didn’t quite enjoy these chapters but plodded along nonetheless.

One thing I find rather glaring is the proliferation of fractured sentences throughout the novel, and third-person pronouns suddenly switch to first-person pronouns with no warning such as quotation marks. These may be merely literary devices employed by the author, but they don’t quite sit well with me.

I was inclined to give this novel 2 ½ stars but in all fairness to the author - for his brave attempt and hard work - I’m giving 3 stars.

I received an advance review copy for free from the publisher and NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This novel was an absolute joy to read. The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite novels and this imagining of Nick Carraway's life before he met Jay Gatsby is pitch perfect.

We first meet Nick, as a soldier, in Paris during the First World War. He is with a woman who asks him not to return to the front. Nick feels honour bound to do his duty and we follow him through the terror and brutality of life in the trenches. During his next period of leave he see the woman, we now know as Ella, once more. He is wracked by guilt about her situation. She pushes him away and he returns to the war and volunteers for the very dangerous job of working in the tunnels under the battlefields.

After the war, Nick finds himself in New Orleans and he becomes embroiled in the pre-prohibition underworld of saloons, prostitutes, gambling and criminals. He gets caught up in a feud which has tragic consequences.

The rich narrative in this book truly captures Nick's experiences during the war and in bawdy New Orleans. You hear the guns and explosions, smell the smoke and feel the dirt and mud. You hear the loudness brassiness of New Orleans, see the violence and sense the lawlessness. It is vivid and immersing.

The characters are beautifully brought to life. Nick is damaged by the war and his experience with Ella; he is a loner and an observer. In New Orleans he meets Judah, another survivor of the war and they recognise the brokenness within each other. Colette, Judah's wife has also suffered as a result of the conflict with her life taking a very different turn to the one she might have expected.

The novel ends with Nick in New Haven glimpsing a lone figure standing at the end of a pier and so The Great Gatsby begins.

This was a compelling and haunting character study set against tumultuous and uncertain times. I think FSF would approve,

Many thanks to NetGalley and Oldcastle Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

World War I is raging and Nick Caraway among the young soldiers who fight in France. His life threatened when he lies in the trench, he is looking for distraction in Paris on those few days he is off duty. He falls for a woman but times like these are not made for love. When he returns to the US in 1919, he suffers from what we today call post-traumatic stress syndrome. He does not know where to go or what to do with his life and thus ends up in New Orleans. The lively city promises forgetting but there, too, he is haunted in his dreams.

I was so looking forward to reading Michael Farris Smith’s novel about Nick Caraway since I have read “The Great Gatsby” several times, watched the film adaptations even more often and totally adore Fitzgerald’s characters. Knowing that the plot was set in the time before Nick meets Jay Gatsby, it was clear that this novel would not be a kind of spin-off, but I wasn’t expecting something with absolutely no connection to the classic novel at all. Apart from the protagonist’s name and the very last page, I couldn’t see any link and admittedly I was quite disappointed since I had expected a totally different story.

First of all, having read Fitzgerald so many times, I have developed some idea of the character Nick. He has always been that gentle and shy young man who is attentive and a good listener and friend. He never appeared to be the party animal who headlessly consumes alcohol and goes to brothels. Therefore, the encounters with women in “NICK“ do not fit to my idea of the character at all. He also never made the impression of being totally traumatized by his war experiences which, on the contrary, is the leading motive in this novel.

Roaring Twenties, lively New York party life, people enjoying themselves - this is the atmosphere I adored in The Great Gatsby, none of this can be found in “NICK”. It starts with exhausting war descriptions, something I avoid reading normally and I wasn’t prepared for at all. Pages after page we read about soldiers fighting, this might be attractive for some readers, unfortunately, this is no topic for me. After depressing war scenes, we have gloomy and depressed Nick not knowing how to cope with the experiences he made in France. No glitter here, but a lot of fire and ashes.

Reading “NICK” without having “The Great Gatsby” in mind might lead to a totally different reading experience. For me, sadly, a disappointment in many respects for which also some beautifully put sentences and an interesting character development could not make amends.

3.5 Stars:
Michael Farris Smith takes the narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and imagines his life prior to the events of the classic novel.
The first part of the novel is set during WW1 and follows Nick’s fortunes on the front line in France - a long nightmare of bloody battles and constant fear. During short periods of leave in Paris he strikes up a relationship with Ella, a nomadic free spirit - an affair, that in his damaged state becomes all consuming.
Psychologically broken, Nick can’t face going home as the war comes to an end. He detours, randomly to New Orleans and enters a sleazy, pre prohibition world of chancers, prostitutes, drugs and abject poverty.
Nick falls in with some dangerous and desperate characters and a dark, twisted drama plays out that has some strange echoes of the Great Gatsby storyline.
In an introduction to the book MFS discusses his writing life, his bouts of depression and why he was drawn to Nick Carraway as a character (he too was a dislocated ex pat feeling his life was running away from him) and it’s interesting how these elements become important themes in the book.
In The Great Gatsby Nick is an integral part of the plot but is also slightly detached, an honest outsider observing those around him, not quite connecting. In this novel his relationship to the story and characters felt similar. This was probably intended, but I wanted to know him more and really get under his skin. His PTSD, emotional background and family life were well described but I still felt he was an enigma. I never felt that I fully understood his actions.
Michael Farris Smith is a very good writer and creates a convincing picture of post WW1 New Orleans. He builds some strong characters and a plot full of high drama. For me though, the darkness that blankets the novel from beginning to end is so uniform and unvarying that some of the poignancy and power is lost.
Despite having mixed feelings about this novel, it is well worth reading and as always, I look forward to next book by this author.
I thank NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I received a copy of the book from Netgalley to review. Thank you for the opportunity.
I was intrigued by this story and the idea behind it.
However, the story felt intimately related to the author which is great if the reader identifies with that but I personally did not. It felt contrived and the author strive to make Nick fit into their perception of him, which took wawy the mystery of the character.
Sadly this book was not for me.

Is it 'NICK'? Or 'Nick'? Why do we need the capitals? Anyway.... Now, I'm usually open-minded about the need some have for prequels or sequels to classic works, or re-makes even. I generally don't bother with them, but because this is touted as a prequel to the great 2oth century classic I was intrigued to see what was what. I'll also admit that it has been some time since I read 'Gatsby'.

I had various issues with this:
Firstly, there is a Foreword from the author, which immediately set me slightly on edge with its 'me, me, me' reasons for writing the book. If the publisher is going to include something like this, put it at the end where readers can have had time to read the book. As it is, I started reading it as something of a vanity project by the author, which is never going to win me over.
Secondly, the novel is written in the third-person, so very different from the first-person narrative voice we get from Nick in 'Gatsby'.. I just couldn't work out why it had been done this way. If it was intended to 'sound' like Nick then why not in first-person? As it is, the narrative voice just didn't strike me as realistic or sympathetic.
Thirdly, the events which unfold in the main section of the book, set in New Orleans, struck me as a little preposterous. Without spoiling too much of the plot, and to paraphrase a certain Lady from literature, to be involved in one love affair which ends in a shooting may be regarded as a misfortune, to be involved in two looks like carelessness. For me, the Nick who would have emerged from the events in this book bears no relation to the one we see in 'Gatsby'.

Others will find plenty to admire and like in this attempt to fill in the blanks before the events of 'Gatsby', but I'm afraid that this was just not for me.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

*Nick* is a prequel about *The Great Gatsby*'s narrator, Nick Carraway, and his experience in World War I.

The beauty of *Gatsby* is that to tell the story, Nick has almost no personality and is, therefore, open to interpretation, imagination, and projection. I did not really gel with Michael Farris Smith's vision of Nick. The most interesting thing about Nick in my opinion is his sexuality and romantic attachments. I would have liked to see a relationship as a foil to his relationship he has with Jordan Baker in *Gatsby*.

Call me when there is a gay AF *Gatsby* retelling (it's canon, see the end of chapter 2 in the original).

In the introduction to Nick, Michael Farris-Smith talks about his relationship with its “source material”, the classic F Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby. That relationship shifted over the years and his response to that novel changed as he grew and changed. As this happened the character who he found himself most fascinated with was the book’s narrator Nick Carraway. He realised that the book does not deal except briefly with the experiences that shaped Nick in his twenties and Farris-Smith, now identifying with Carraway, felt the need to explore these experiences.
When the book opens, it is the last years of World War I and Nick Carraway is a soldier ending a seven day leave pass in Paris. He has met a girl and they have spent all that time together. When he returns to the horrors of the front, Nick will recall their brief but intense relationship, and it is the thought of her that keeps him going through the mud and blood and death. But nothing is how we imagine it and the traumatic outcome of their second meeting drives Nick deeper into the horrors of the War, horrors which he barely survives. On his return to America, rather than going back to his family, Nick runs to New Orleans where he becomes involved in the broken relationship between another damaged veteran and his wife who had survived his absence (and report of his death) by running a local brothel.
Much like Farris-Smith’s other novels, Nick is dark. The first section, while dealing in World War One tropes that have been well used over the years is effective in conveying the trauma that Nick will carry with him for the rest of his life. The rest of the book sets a bit of a template for the character in that he kind of drifts into relationships but once he does so, he sticks, becoming part participant but part observer.
In some respects Nick works as a mirror image of Gatsby. The Great Gatsby deals with the upper classes of New York, the tension between old money and new money, and the fiction that Jay Gatsby creates to break into that world. While the bulk of Nick is concerned with a tooth and claw world, the trenches of France and the saloons and brothels of New Orleans, with people who put on no pretence and are just struggling to be themselves and the collateral damage that comes with violence. In this way Nick, as the observer, becomes a throughline of these two very different worlds. In each case he finds his someone to quietly support no matter what their crimes, and sticks by them both to help but also, in some respects just to see what happens.
And while this is supposed to be a kind of spiritual prequel to The Great Gatsby it is sometimes hard to see the point. Nick Carraway is a passive character, being drawn along in the wake of others, and this is a trait that is replicated here. While the book does explain how Nick arrived to the beginning of Gatsby, with the exception of this short coda in which Nick moves to Long Island and witnesses a figure staring across the water at a green light, the book could have been about anyone.
The author’s foreword gives some hint as to what Farris-Smith is trying to achieve with Nick. And that is to explore through fiction his own journey to becoming an author. While he had a much less traumatic time in Europe in his twenties, it feels like he is trying to put himself in the shoes of the character. Or rather to imagine how he might have behaved if he had been in similar places but during the late 1910s and early 1920s
While there are plenty of prequels hitting the stands at the moment, Nick is something a little different. Farris-Smith does not try to slavishly explain every turn or revelation in The Great Gatsby. Rather this book provides depth and backstory to one of its central characters. It is in many ways a stand alone story of a man dealing with trauma and expectation. But it contextualises the actions of a central character in a seminal piece of literature, managing to potentially deepen that work without impinging too heavily on it.

Nick, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, finally gets his own prequel thanks to Michael Farris Smith’s bold imagination. The book recounts the protagonist’s life, covering childhood memories, the turbulent years of war, and his days before moving next door to meeting Gatsby.

Michael Farris Smith has vivid writing style that pairs perfectly with the book’s themes of love, loss, friendship and heartbreak. The diversely evocative descriptions, especially during Nick’s time in the war, made for a really exciting few chapters amongst the entertaining plot.

I really like how the author uses Nick’s traumatic experiences to highlight how history can continue to affect us in the present. The glimpses of his childhood and unfiltered emotion added a nuanced layer to this beloved narrator. After reading this book, I feel like I know Nick Carraway much better.

The Great Gatsby is one of my all-time favourite novels. And it’s the sole reason I chose to pick up this book. Nick certainly has dazzle, but it doesn’t shine nearly as bright as The Great Gatsby. I think part of this lies with the third-person narrative, and part with the slower pace. Fitzgerald expertly mixes melancholy with exuberance in The Great Gatsby, and while Nick has both its jazz and gloom, it’s not quite the same. Of course, I don’t expect the two books to be identical, but this difference was noticeable for me.

Still, Nick is a compelling book I’m glad I took the time to read. However, I think it would be better suited to a standalone read, as the iconic shadow of The Great Gatsby had an immense impact on my high expectations.

The Great Gatsby is one of my absolute favourite books. I’ve read it multiple times and have listened to Jake Gyllenhaal’s amazing narration on Audible. So when I first saw NICK on my NetGalley dashboard, I was instantly curious to see how this prequel would live up to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby. Though a little nervous about delving into the earlier life of Nick Carraway, I still wanted to give this book a chance.

Once I started reading NICK, I immediately noticed a few significant differences between the stories. Gatsby is narrated by Nick in the first person, whereas NICK has third-person narrative. Which creates a bit of a barrier between the character and reader, and doesn’t evoke the same feelings that Gatsby’s Nick does.

The writing style is also different. Fitzgerald’s Gatsby is emotive, intricate, melancholy, vivacious. Farris Smith’s NICK is the complete opposite. That’s not to say there’s an issue with the writing, on the contrary, it is excellently written with vivid imagery and descriptive details of war and depression, but I found it to be a little dry and slow in parts.

NICK is very different to The Great Gatsby in both writing style and narrative and has next to no allusions or connections to the Nick we know in Gatsby. I think this book would have been a good story had it just been an original/standalone novel, rather than marketing it as a prequel. Sadly, this one was not for me.

Many thanks to Michael Farris Smith, Oldcastle Books, and NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Isolation and bewilderment, the bad days and nights Nick faced, his crossing paths with a few main characters like Collette and Judah, from Paris to Frenchtown and eventually Minnesota home again, captured with skill in this narrative.
That tale of war surviving and getting back and facing what was left behind, the love, the lost love, the new friendships, and the new friend with whom he has empathy with, the eyes meet and there is a common understanding of pain and the war being there and seen many terrible things.

Many moments of emotion, thoughts and rumination, vividly and empathically immersing the reader in the world of Nick with the authors careful good crafting with words and sentences that demand re-reading.
This world before he came to meet the man Gatsby, when he went to war, backrooms of brothels, and walking the streets following Paris girls he replaced for the one he lost.
These aspects of the tale may have the reader want to open the crack of a copy of The Great Gatsby for a re-read, as I am one of many including the author of this book who loves the tale peened by Fitzgerald.

That arrival next to Gatsby is signalled with this passage near finality of the tale, “The cottage was situated in a quiet and upscale community on a strip of island that stretched east from New York City. It was flanked by two mansions and Nick had the feeling on first sight of the cottage that he was moving into the servant quarters.”
There is another few sentences right near the end where a silhouette comes into view that can only be one person, it is something simple but great to read of and arise to in its ending of this chapter of Nick’s life, bravo Michael Farris Smith you stole my heart for a time.

An interesting read about the effect of World War 2 on Nick and the decisions he makes. In some ways this did not feel like a prequel. Nick’s experiences in World War 2 were a good read and could easily be part of a standalone story.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy.