“The world may look at you and see a pawn, but that just means they’ll never see your next move coming.”
In Anna-Marie McLemore’s remix of The Great Gatsby, Self-Made Boys, we follow three teens who are chasing the American Dream in the Roaring 20s. Nicolás, a 17-year old transgender boy from Minnesota, has no interest in the glitz and glamour of the big city but has to New York to establish himself as a young professional to benefit his family. Renting a small house in West Egg thanks to his cousin Daisy Fabrega who lives in the fashionable East Egg near her wealthy fiancé Tom, Nick is shocked to learn that his cousin now goes by Daisy Fay, completely erasing all signs of her Latina heritage and passing as white to fit into society. Then there’s also Nick’s mysterious neighbour, young Jay Gatsby whose mansion is the stage for extravagant and over-the-top parties that all seem to be hosted to impress a girl from Jay’s past—Daisy. As Nick is pulled deeper into the intricate web of the past between Daisy and Jay, he cannot help but get closer to Jay and what starts as a mutual agreement to reconnect the two lost souls ends in Nick falling for the charming boy who confesses he’s also transgender. But with the unfounded faith in the American Dream and jealous men claiming Daisy, Nick’s life is about to get a whole lot more complicated.
I don’t know whether I devoured this book or this book devoured me. Self-Made Boys was the Great Gatsby retelling of my dreams, I kid you not. Two trans leads and a Latina lesbian Daisy? This book was made for me. Granted, I’ve read this book over twenty times (you wouldn’t believe how many university courses use this as a staple to talk about anything from the American Dream to racism and inequality) but I was still overwhelmed with how much I loved Self-Made Boys.
I was mesmerised by how clever this retelling was. McLemore makes excellent choices when it comes to drawing from the source material yet adds so many layers of depth that the story feels as fresh and reinvented as Gatsby hopes he was. McLemore’s Latinx lens turned Gatsby and Nick’s story even more intense when it comes to themes of equality, racism and freedom. Everything felt so organic—McLemore really added to the original characters instead of taking their traits away from them. Daisy, especially, gets her time to shine in this retelling, and we finally see behind the curtains on her sometimes naïve, childlike behaviour. I loved how Daisy’s frustrations and compulsion to fit in drove much of the narrative. Similarly, McLemore manages to capture the glamour (yet dark, seedy underbelly) of the Roaring 20s and really connected the impending Great Depression to the way the characters behaved. And the writing, oh the writing. Nick as the spectator that sees everything but always feels like there’s a distance between him and everyone else that he can’t cross only to then be taken in by Daisy and later on Jay was so compelling. Somehow McLemore managed to take Nick’s voice in The Great Gatsby and make it better tenfold in their retelling.
While we all know how the original story goes, I don’t want to take away too much from readers who go into this story blindly. What I will say is that Nick and Jay are fully fleshed out in this novel and together with Daisy, they create a wholly nuanced story that feels almost spellbinding. There is a certain kind of tenderness to their friendship and Nick and Jay’s eventual romance that is so beautiful to witness, but there is also old pain and grief like you wouldn’t believe. Yet above all is this feeling of comfort and acceptance that made it hard to put this book down. Though I’ve always been a huge fan of the author, this story might just be my new favourite.
McLemore creates a heady cocktail of identity, acceptance and comfort in Self-Made Boys. Featuring tons of nuance when it comes to racism, colourism and equality, characterisations that echo the source material yet add layers upon layers of depth together with a dash of the iconic Roaring 20s vibes, this wonderfully queer The Great Gatsby retelling will leave you mesmerised!
Self-Made Boys is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of September 6th 2022.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
New York City, 1922. Nicolás Caraveo, a 17-year-old transgender boy from Minnesota, has no interest in the city’s glamor. Going to New York is all about establishing himself as a young professional, which could set up his future—and his life as a man—and benefit his family.
Nick rents a small house in West Egg from his 18-year-old cousin, Daisy Fabrega, who lives in fashionable East Egg near her wealthy fiancé, Tom—and Nick is shocked to find that his cousin now goes by Daisy Fay, has erased all signs of her Latina heritage, and now passes seamlessly as white.
Nick’s neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious young man named Jay Gatsby, whose castle-like mansion is the stage for parties so extravagant that they both dazzle and terrify Nick. At one of these parties, Nick learns that the spectacle is all for the benefit of impressing a girl from Jay’s past—Daisy. And he learns something else: Jay is also transgender.
As Nick is pulled deeper into the glittery culture of decadence, he spends more time with Jay, aiming to help his new friend reconnect with his lost love. But Nick’s feelings grow more complicated when he finds himself falling hard for Jay’s openness, idealism, and unfounded faith in the American Dream.
