When asked what part of the Middle West he comes from, Jay Gatsby says: 'San Francisco.' This is usually taken as a sign of his shaky geography or his eagerness to cover up his origins, or both. But the response seems too blunt and broad for that - too blunt and broad for either Gatsby or Fitzgerald. If Gatsby were at all given to making jokes, we might think this was one.

LRB 10 November 1994 | PDF Download