Beautiful Little Fools

Set against the glittering backdrop of Jazz Age America, this novel reimagines F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby from the perspectives of three women whose lives converge around the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. Their alternating voices unspool across the years leading up to Gatsby's murder in the summer of 1922, while a detective's investigation threads through their accounts, pulling apart their lies.

The novel opens with an unnamed woman shooting Jay beside his swimming pool in West Egg, New York, on a sweltering August day in 1922. He falls into the water, the pool turns red, and she runs.

The story moves back to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1917. 18-year-old Daisy Fay lives with her parents and her younger sister, Rose, who survived polio but walks with a limp. A soldier named Jay Gatsby offers Daisy a ride one afternoon, and she is immediately captivated. Over the following weeks, they fall in love. Daisy's best friend, Jordan Baker, a 16-year-old aspiring golfer raised by her widowed father, Judge Baker, warns Daisy that Jay is not the kind of man she should marry. Daisy ignores the warning and becomes intimate with Jay. When he ships out for the war, he asks her to follow him to New York so they can marry. She agrees to come after Christmas.

Meanwhile, Catherine McCoy, a young woman from rural Illinois, moves to New York to be near her older sister, Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle lives with her husband, George, a mechanic, above his garage in Queens. At an underground saloon, Catherine meets Jay, who is devastated by a telegram from Daisy saying she cannot come.

Daisy cannot come because catastrophe strikes: Her father and Rose are killed in a train accident, their remains returned in a single box. Jay writes asking Daisy to wait, but she does not respond. Her mother reveals enormous gambling debts; they are nearly penniless. Daisy resolves to use her beauty to find a wealthy husband.

Jordan earns a spot on the Women's National Amateur Golf Tour, where she meets Mary Margaret Smith, a warm golfer from Nashville. The two become close and, eventually, something more. Daisy, meanwhile, meets Tom Buchanan, an enormously wealthy polo player, and is drawn to the security his money represents. By June 1919, they marry. Tom's gifts include a $350,000 pearl necklace and two diamond hairpins. A letter arrives from Jay at Oxford, begging Daisy not to marry Tom. She tears it to pieces.

At the wedding, Jordan rescues a fainting guest named Blocks Biloxi and brings him home to recover. One night, Blocks enters her bedroom and sexually assaults her. She drives him off with a golf putter, and her father sends Blocks away. That night, Jordan tries to tell her father she will never be happy with a man but stops short. The next morning, she finds him dead in his bed.

Tom proves unfaithful almost immediately. On their honeymoon in Santa Barbara, Daisy discovers he has had an affair with a hotel chambermaid. She gives birth to a daughter, Pamela, nicknamed Pammy, and weeps, hoping the child will be a fool, because that is the best thing a girl can be in this world. Tom promises fidelity, and they move to France. Jordan visits and catches Tom with Pammy's nurse. She slaps him and threatens to kill him but does not tell Daisy.

On the golf tour, Jordan and Mary Margaret become sexually intimate. Their chaperone, Mrs. Pearce, discovers them. A newspaper then accuses Jordan of cheating, and she is dismissed from the tour. Jordan realizes the accusation is retaliation for what Mrs. Pearce saw. Mary Margaret flees to Nashville and refuses all contact. Devastated, Jordan moves to New York and sinks into depression.

During this period, Catherine and Jay begin a casual sexual arrangement. Jay remains fixated on Daisy, and Catherine accepts she is a substitute. Jay buys a mansion in West Egg, directly across the sound from Daisy's new home in East Egg. He engineers a meeting between Myrtle and Tom on a commuter train, and they begin an affair. Jay's goal is to pull Tom away from Daisy so he can reclaim her. Catherine is furious when she realizes what Jay has done but keeps his involvement from Myrtle.

By the summer of 1922, all three women's lives are entangled around Gatsby. Daisy endures Tom's continued infidelity in East Egg. Jordan arrives for the summer, and Daisy gives her one of the diamond hairpins. Nick Carraway, Daisy's second cousin once removed, orchestrates a reunion between Daisy and Jay. Jay shows Daisy photographs of Tom with Myrtle and begs her to leave Tom. Daisy feels nothing; life with Tom has made her numb.

Jay discovers that Jordan was expelled from the tour because Mrs. Pearce found her with Mary Margaret, and he blackmails her into helping him win Daisy. At a later visit to Jay's house, he pressures Daisy physically by the pool. Catherine interrupts, having come to confront Jay about Myrtle, and Daisy flees. Meanwhile, Tom punches Myrtle at her apartment, breaking her nose after she shouts Daisy's name.

The crisis arrives on the hottest day of August. At the Plaza Hotel, Tom and Jay argue bitterly over Daisy. Tom sends Daisy home in Jay's yellow Rolls-Royce. As Daisy drives through Queens, Myrtle runs into the road believing Tom is coming to rescue her. Jay grabs the wheel, and the car strikes Myrtle, killing her.

The next morning, terrified of what Jay might do to Daisy, Jordan steals Tom's gun and races to West Egg. She hides behind Jay's pool. When he emerges, he reveals that Daisy was driving when Myrtle was killed and says the secret will keep Daisy tied to him forever. Jordan shoots him.

Moments later, Catherine arrives with one of George's pistols, intending to confront Jay about Myrtle's death. She encounters Daisy in the driveway. They flee into the woods, where George Wilson appears, drunk and armed, blaming Daisy for Myrtle's death. Catherine shoots George, saving Daisy's life. Jordan wipes her gun, places it in George's hand to stage a suicide, and tells Daisy and Catherine to leave the woods separately and never speak of this again.

A parallel storyline follows Detective Frank Charles, haunted by the unsolved murder of his own sister, Lizzie. Jay's associate Meyer Wolfsheim hires Frank to uncover the truth. Frank interviews all three women, shows each a diamond hairpin he found near Jay's pool, and senses they are lying. Nick reveals that the hairpin, originally Daisy's, was worn by Jordan all summer. Frank confronts Jordan at a tournament in California; she tells him he will never prove anything. Knowing Wolfsheim would have Jordan killed, Frank lies and says George Wilson acted alone. He collects the $15,000 fee and rents a summer house for his wife, Dolores, who survived cancer three years earlier.

In the aftermath, Catherine moves to Chicago and dedicates herself to helping women who have experienced abuse. Jordan uses her inheritance to buy her way back onto the golf tour. A year later, Daisy packs the pearl necklace in her handbag and boards a train to Louisville with Pammy, leaving Tom behind. As the train crosses the Ohio River, she remembers chasing fireflies with Rose and resolves to raise Pammy to be brave, bold, and fearless. When Pammy asks where they are, Daisy answers: "Home."