During a recent interview he actually mentions that the first time he picked a copy of The Great Gatsby up he actually couldn’t see why everyone was raving about it. It wasn’t until he picked it up for the 3rd time that it left an impression on him, and perhaps not in the same why it does for others. He was fascinated not with Jay Gatbsy or Daisy Buchanan but with Nick Carraway, a character we know very little about.

In fact, all we actually do know about this young man is that he is originally from Minnesota, was educated at Yale and fought in World War I. Other than that we learn very little about such a pivotal character. For most, this would mean that we soon lose interest in him and focus more on the main characters in the narrative, but the mystery surrounding Nick Carraway is exactly what attracted Michael to him.

Parasitising the classics is a bad habit: they're what authors do when they can't come up with their own stuff. Worse, they try and shoe-horn in modern sensibilities on past times. So with this.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I was really looking forward to reading a Gatsby retelling, especially since it is now in the public domain. I don’t know how innovative this story was against the original text.

Gatsby is one of my favourite books of all time so I was ready to be dismissive of this clear "cash in" on the entry into the public domain reimagined prequel. I was surprised that I really really enjoyed the story overall, Smith's writing was beautiful, and kept true to the source material. Nick is a really interesting character, and while he is demoted to narrator and observer of Gatsby's story in the original, here he gets a lot of building and development that he deserves. Recommend this highly.

I have always found Nick Carraway, the narrator of Gatsby, a rather ambiguous and amoral character. I love Gatsby and was scared to pick up this prequel, but I feel that the writer has done a creditable job of fleshing out an impossible, cardboard cut out character. My problem with Nick is that he never says no, takes a stand or declares a side - except for when he proclaims Gatsby worth more than all the others put together and condemns his cousin and her husband for being careless with other peoples lives. All that is in hindsight though, and for most of the book he is privy to everyone’s secrets, never judging Tom’s infidelity despite his family loyalty or Daisy meeting with Gatsby in his home. I’m never sure I like him, because I don’t know who he is.

This is the problem the author faces and his prequel goes some way to explaining this peripheral, shadowy figure. One of the first things I was reminded of, something I always forget, is these men went through the horrors of WW1. The hedonism we see in the 1920s can be read as a direct response to trauma and loss. These men have seen the worst of what humanity can do to each other, so is it any wonder that they’re hard drinking, wild partying and morally ambiguous? His lost chance of love in Paris could go some way to explaining Nick’s seeming lack of interest in women, something so pronounced I have often wondered about his attachment to Gatsby. It’s as if through pain and loss Nick has decided to experience life on the fringes, always observing and rarely joining in. He doesn’t fully live. Even his urge to be a writer involves observation of human nature rather than interacting with it. He can then write about other people’s lives, while never developing his own. I think the writer captures this aspect well and goes some way towards explaining it.

However, there are some aspects that jump out at me. If Nick is from the same family as Daisy, surely his family are wealthy? Yet he’s the son of a store keeper here. His romance pre- Gatsby happens back home in the mid-West not Paris. These are little grumbles, because just like a TV adaptation this is one person’s view of the character and it might be best read as a story about a young man called Nick rather than getting too bogged down in how you see him or whether it fits with Gatsby or not. On the whole this is well-written and digs effective,y into the seedy underbelly of New Orleans. I think readers should take this as one writer’s thoughts on a narrator who is largely withdrawn, always present but never truly seen. There’s a loneliness in his position that I think the author captures well and he also emphasises that Nick is entering his fourth decade with no real ties or responsibilities, he has to decide whether that is a blessing or a curse. I would seek out the author’s other work on the strength of this - particularly the author’s ability to create an atmosphere and sense of place that’s so vivid it stays with you, rather like the green light across the bay.

I couldn’t get into this book at all. I really tried but it didn’t grip me at all and I found myself getting bored and having to try and force myself to read it

Nick by Michael Farris Smith

Nick is the unofficial prequel to The Great Gatsby – about the life of narrator Nick Carraway before he moves to West End.
You don't need to have read The Great Gatsby to read this book. In fact, I only read it last year and I didn't really feel a huge amount of connection between the two books.
I found Nick's time in the war fascinating -especially his time in the tunnels. I think that really builds up our relationship with Nick and gives us a greater understanding of why he is who he is. His PTSD seems to, sadly, define his choices afterwards.
But I really struggled with the New Orleans section. The whole hard drinking-violence- chaos- drugs- sex –squalor and misery theme, in my opinion, has been portrayed better in other books.
This part just seemed like a big sack labelled 'New Orleans Tropes' that Michael Farris Smith just slung over his shoulder and carried around without delving into it and considering the elements in smaller and more considered pieces.
So for me, the book started to rapidly lose my interest after Nick reaches New Orleans.

* Thanks to No Exit Press and Netgalley for the ARC

I was initially excited about this novel, especially now that Gatsby is out of copyright. However, I just couldn't get into it. I was bored and had to put it down. I found the foreword off-putting as well, with the author stating they felt like THEY were the one who HAD to write this novel. Felt very self-control and definitely put me off. I think I'm gonna stick with fun, Queer imaginings of Gatsby from now on

3.5 stars

I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

Nick focuses on the life before the West Egg and the whirlwind friendship with Gatsby. The first third or so is set in Paris and trench life of World War 1. With both physical and mental scars at the end of the war, Nick makes a sudden decision to delay his return to the family business in Minnesota and sets off for New Orleans.

There are a few potential triggers for this book and they include (but not limited to): abortion, blood, death, drug addiction, gore, infant death, and war.

This would be suitable for anyone who has a love of literary fiction. You don't have to have read The Great Gatsby to this book. Although, you may appreciate this prequel more if you have.

The overall concept of this book was something that initially pulled me in. I had enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby in my A level class and wanted to know more about our enigmatic narrator. Who was Nick Carraway and how did he end up on the West Egg? Nick's backstory was interesting and added a new layer to the character. The language used within this book matched relatively well to the age in which the book is set. I enjoyed both settings used within this novel, but it did seem to be a little disjointed. At times it felt like I was dealing with two separate plots.

At times it felt like there was too much happening in one book. There was lost love, PTSD, revenge, and betrayal. Without going into any spoilers, there were a lot of subplots threaded throughout the 2nd part of this story. Although they are all wrapped up, it did slow the book down quite a bit, and it made the reading of this feel a little like a chore. For example, I read some of this book and then put it down for 5 weeks before picking it back up.

The writing was quite dense in the sense of it being very literary. I don't think this hindered the storytelling, but it may make it more difficult to feel gripped by the narrative.

PTSD and nightmares were a big part of this plot. Nick wrestled with his fears in the second part of the book and I feel like the introduction of Judeah and Colette were physical representations of these areas.

It’s been many years since I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald but I do remember it had a profound impact on me at the time. So it was with some trepidation that I began reading Nick, a prequel to Gatsby that brings narrator Nick Carraway to the forefront of the story, giving him a background and depth of character that takes him from the impact of his mother’s depression growing up in a small town in the Mid West of America to the horror and bloodshed of the trenches in France during World War 1. But I needn’t have worried as Michael Farris Smith does the character justice, bringing him vividly to life as he tells the story of Nick’s life leading up to his first meeting with Jay Gatsby at the beginning of the famous novel.

The story begins as Nick is saying goodbye to Ella, a French woman he has been having a passionate affair with, as he leaves Paris to go back to the trenches of World War 1. This is the start of a journey that will see him lose and then search for his wartime first love, experience the horror and trauma of the battlefield, coming back to take in the heady excitement of New Orleans as this rich and imaginative story of self discovery takes us forward to the very beginning of The Great Gatsby where Nick Carraway sees Jay Gatsby for the very first time, his experiences in this novel shaping everything that is to come in his sympathetic relationship with Gatsby.

It is obvious that Michael Farris Smith has a great deal of affection for the source material and this comes through with every word. He does the character of Nick Carraway justice as he turns what was a periphery role in the novel into a full rounded and believable character that you can’t help but care about. His writing is divine and reads very much as you would expect it to, leading very nicely into the beginning of The Great Gatsby so the most natural thing in the world is for you to want to pick up the original novel and continue reading, feeling a better understanding of the character than you ever did before.

Nick was a very pleasant surprise, beautifully written and with an authenticity to it that makes it utterly believable as a prequel to the original story. A fascinating novel that I thoroughly enjoyed and would highly recommend.

My thanks to Oldcastle Books No Exit Press for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘NICK’ by Michael Farris Smith in exchange for an honest review.

This is a prequel to ‘The Great Gatsby’ that explores Nick Carraway’s life before he moved to West Egg and entered Gatsby’s sparkling world.

It follows Nick as he serves in the Great War, first in the trenches and then in the tunnels as a Listener. Traumatised by his experiences, he delays his return home. He first travels to Paris, where he is swept up in a whirlwind romance, and then on to New Orleans.

In his Foreword Farris Smith shares his experiences of reading ‘Gatsby’ over the years and how his perception of the novel changed as he matured. He was particularly inspired by this remark by Nick in the original: ‘I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous menacing road of a new decade.’.

So from the very few details provided about Nick’s background, Michael Farris Smith, himself an expatriate for a time, decided to write Nick’s backstory.

He completed ‘NICK’ in 2015, though due to copyright restrictions it was unable to be published until January 2021, when ‘The Great Gatsby’ entered the public domain in the United States. Given this, ‘NICK’ is bound to be the first in a number of novels seeking to reimagine ‘The Great Gatsby’. I thought that it was a good character study that expanded on Fitzgerald’s novel while respecting the original text.

Although I am not familiar with Michael Farris Smith, he is clearly an established American author. I felt that he did well in portraying the period settings in France and New Orleans as well as powerfully conveying the stark horrors of trench warfare.

The cover of ‘NICK’ is very striking and echoes the iconic cover of the first edition of ‘The Great Gatsby’ by Francis Cugat titled ‘Celestial Eyes’.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

A gripping back-story of the narrator of "The Great Gatsby" - very well written and in some respects a more interesting (and certainly longer) read than the Scott Fitzgerald original

A very interesting take on a classic tale, I only recently read The Great Gatsby so this book seemed very up my street recently. Beautifully written which allowed me to immerse myself into the story very well. In my opinion this book does justice to Gatsby, and doesn't stray too of course which is brilliant. The imagination which has been undertaken to write this story is great and I enjoyed thinking about different aspects. It definitely helped me connect further with characters.

I participated in the book trailer social media Blitz for Nick by Michael Farris Smith in late 2020 and eagerly accepted an eARC of the book shortly thereafter. When the publisher once again contacted me ahead of publication wondering if I would like to participate in a review tour for the book, well of course I said yes! Thank you very much for the opportunity, No Exit Press. None of this has influenced by review. My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

Everyone remembers Nick Carraway, the unreliable and oh-so-passive narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, but what did his first 30 years of life look like before he found himself renting next door to the mysterious wealthy party host? Michael Farris Smith set out to find out and share the answer with us. Now that copyright has lapsed on Gatsby I expect we'll get a lot more retellings and spinoff stories, but this will be remembered as the first prequel story, and a strong one at that!

NICK gives us glimpses into plenty of different events and time periods throughout Nick's life, from flashbacks to childhood, to wartime horrors and retreats in Europe, to reluctant wandering upon his return to the USA. The tone and emotions ride a rollercoaster up and down in line with the joys and horrors on Nick's life and never quite let the reader settle into one extreme or the other for too long. This is absolutely one excellent possible backstory that formed the broken shell we meet in Fitzgerald's book.

The difference between a 4 and a 5 on this book, or the reason it didn't absolutely blow me away, aren't really the book or author's fault. They're my fault. It's about my expectations and how I imagined Nick's earlier life (and later life.) I'm absolutely in camp queer when it comes to speculating on was Nick attracted to Gatsby's lifestyle or was Nick attracted to Gatsby, and this prequel didn't give any strong indications that Smith thinks that's what was going on. I also wasn't at all prepared for interludes into memories from childhood that chop up the narrative. I would have preferred to either start with childhood or skip it entirely and start with teen or adult Nick preparing to go to war.

This really is a great book, and I would recommend it broadly to fans of historical fiction, but I would caution lovers of The Great Gatsby in particular that this book may or may not live up to your expectations. Gatsby has been such a pillar in literature, so well studied and discussed over the last century, that I think at this point anyone who cares to know Nick's story has already drafted their own backstory for him in some level of detail, and this may not reflect those individual visions. Go into this read with the expectations you set for a new, unrelated work or for fan fiction, whichever works best for you, and remember that while this is inspired by Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway, nobody can truly know at this point what Fitzgerald had in mind. This is one possibility and it's very well written.

The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite films, sorry to the purists but the Baz Luhrmann one is for me. I also really love a prequel to and the prequel to Jane Eyre, The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is one of my absolute favourite books that I read when studying for my degree. So when No Exit sent through the original publicity for this book I was really intrigued. It also has the most stunning cover reminiscent of The Great Gatsby.

The book starts with Nick leaving Paris and leaving behind a woman that he has had an love affair with, he is heading back home to America and next part of the book retells some of the trauma that Nick experiences in the trenches which is honest and brutal.

My favourite part of the book is this six day affair in Paris which I really loved, wandering through the streets with Nick and Ellen. It had vibes of Moulin Rouge another favourite film of mine. Particularly where Ellen lives :

They stood together in the attic above Theatre du Reve, a small theater below that once thrived with dance and song but had stopped trying during the war. The Attic was a place to store the production costumes, racks of discloured high-necked dresses and floor length overcoats and mismatched suits and evening gowns.

The other side of the story in the trenches is much more brutal and a real contrast and highlights why Nick will suffer for the rest of his life. Coming from a wealthy family with a mother who suffered with depression and this has also impacted on him. He is very sensitive soul and really is not prepared for the brutalities of war and of life.

It is a very personal and in-depth look at one of literature most famous narrators. I liked the character of Nick and I feel that I know him better than before and I really like the way the author portrays him it felt close to my own image of Nick. The second part of the book is set in New Orleans where Nick decides to stop when he gets off the train after a long journey rather than returning to his family in Minnesota.

I really did enjoy the historical aspects of the book as Nick returns from war and the new prohibition laws that have been introduced, the author really sets the scene and it is easy to be transported with Nick on his travels. In New Orleans he meets Colette, a madam of a brothel and Judah who offers him a place to stay. These two hate each other and this drags him into violence and revenge and this section of the book is even darker than the flashbacks to war. This is a really interesting read and there is plenty of drama and tension in the story which will keep you reading to the conclusion but also the beginning.

4 stars ****

Thank you to Hollie at No Exit Press for my invitation to the tour and for my copy of the book in return for a fair and honest review.

The Great Gatsby is a book I came to later in life. I don't know why I had not read it earlier, it was just one that I had not got around to, even though it is set in one of my favourite time periods - but when I did, I was smitten. I have read it many times since - each time picking up something new from the story.

When I heard that Michael Farris Smith was writing a prequel that would bring to life the enigmatic Gatsby narrator, Nick Carraway, I knew that there would be no shilly-shallying this time - this was a book that would be at the top of the pile as soon as I could get my hands on a copy - and here I am about to share my thoughts with you!

F. Scott Fitzgerald gives away very little about his narrator, Nick Carraway, as The Great Gatsby focusses primarily on Gatsby, his world, and his take on the American Dream, which gives Michael Farris Smith a lot of freedom to take his story into some interesting places - and he has used his time well. Sometimes you start reading a book and know straight away that you are going to love it. This is one of those books...

When we meet Nick, he is a soldier on the Western Front in World War I, although he is on a brief visit to Paris already haunted by what he has seen, when he first crosses our path. On the grey, faded streets of La Ville Lumière he meets a young girl called Ella and embarks on a love affair that is doomed from the start, despite his romantic illusions. He will carry the scars of this liaison with him for ever, along with those from his time in the death-filled trenches and tunnels.

The time he spends with the ill-fated, battle-weary men in the sea of mud on the front line, combined with the heartbreak he feels, change the course of his life. His despair leads him to make decisions which put him within reach of Death's bending sickle - decisions which very nearly do for him. Farris Smith manages to convey the reality of the hell on earth at the front line in the Great War so completely in this part of the novel, that it cuts right to the bone. With shades of Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, these are scenes that affect you deeply as you read them, and they leave nothing to the imagination, but of course, we know Nick's fate is not to die here in the mire of The Somme.

Once peace has been declared, Nick, broken and ghost-ridden, is unable to return home to the stifling atmosphere of his parents' house. A picture that Farris Smith paints all too well in the flash-backs that give us a glimpse of the oft bewildering childhood Nick has been trying to escape from - here we become familiar with the black moods that take over his mother, and the sterile predictability of a career following in his father's footsteps. Instead, after some aimless time in France chasing memories, he tries to separate himself from his own nightmares by embarking on a surreal odyssey across swathes of the USA via the railroad network - a hazy journey that brings him finally to the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Steeped in the heady, debauched atmosphere of the Big Easy, Nick becomes embroiled in an embittered feud between a husband and wife, that has a terrible toll on the people around them. He finds himself torn between a strange kinship for the husband Judah, a fellow veteran from the trenches, and a fascination with Colette, a wife who has chosen the life of a madam in an attempt to support herself financially - a woman who reminds him in some way of his lost love, Ella. This part of the novel is where Nick begins to find himself again somewhere in the no man's land between the warring couple, and where he builds on this foundation to rethink his ambitions to be a writer. Here is where Farris Smith writes compellingly of the wrong side of the tracks, the part of the city where lust, laughter, drugs and drink direct the fate of the people that live here, and it's glorious.

What next for our budding novelist? What takes him to the door of a certain Mr Gatsby? Well, it is the dawning realisation that he is avoiding the inevitable return home. It simply becomes time to grasp the nettle and move on to something else... something more. He makes a decision that takes him in a new direction, towards New York City, and the ending will leave you with a frisson of excitement for what you know comes next.

I am sure that this will be a book that divides the crowd among Gatsby devotees, but for me it hits just the right spot. It remains true to the spirit of what we already know from The Great Gatsby, building a beautifully drawn and many layered background that shapes Nick into the man he must become, before he fades into the background and ceases to become the star of the show - and my goodness, it's wonderful to read, with honeyed prose that simply glides across the page and into your heart. I adored it!

A fictional prequel to the The Great Gatsby. Smiley is an incredible writer, and this just adds to an impressive resume. Highly recommend

Reading Michael Farris Smith introduction to how he came to write NICK, you immediately feel his connection to Nick as a person and his desire to tell his story and this feeling continues throughout the story.

There are no hints of how the story leads to the Nick we meet in The Great Gatsby until the very end, so NICK stands on its own merit as the compelling story of a young man who sets out to escape what he feels is his inevitable future in his family business in a small mid western town. Having had his childhood split between happiness and dealing with his mother depression he seems detached from others, and his experiences in the trenches and Paris emphasise that. The closest relationships he forms are with people who he feels are like him, scarred by their own experiences and apart from society.

This is not an easy read due to the period and subjects the story covers, but it is definitely worth reading.

I was given a copy of NICK by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

From the moment details of this prequel were released, I was genuinely very excited and eager to read it. I studied The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald for A-Level English and I always felt that Nick played an important role in terms of being the narrator, but that was all. Of course, the name of the book is after the main character Gatsby, so he wouldn’t be the focus. However, I definitely feel that there were opportunities for Nick and his own story to have been explored, but weren’t. He seemed to play an integral part yet also, as an individual character, didn’t; only serving to advance Gatsby’s story. This wasn’t something that Fitzgerald felt was important, but as this book shows, Smith thought otherwise. Instead, Nick is given a proper backstory which actually explains some of his behaviours in The Great Gatsby. He is finally given a real story, which I believe he deserved.

Opening the novel in Paris, Nick recalls his whirlwind romance with Ella. He thinks about her whilst he fights in the brutal World War l (WWl) battle, working in the tunnels, his life in constant danger. When the war is over, he gets on a train, believing he will be returning home to his family. However, when he needs to get onto the final train and complete his journey, he cannot do it. He doesn’t want to answer the questions about the war he knows they will have for him and confront this. What he does instead is embarks on a journey to New Orleans, full of violence, alcohol, and many dangers as he tries to navigate his trauma. The reader will go on a journey with Nick through war, love, heartbreak, trauma, friendship, and pain. It will not be smooth, but the hurdles along the way will eventually lead readers to somewhere very familiar…

What I loved about this novel is how it gave Nick the story I believe he was owed, in a captivating yet complex way. The complexity works effectively to emphasise how trauma and loss can have profound impacts. Through this, Nick gets the dimensions he deserves, no longer the narrator but instead the main character of the story, which is narrated in third person. I was deeply moved by Nick’s story, full of regret, loss, memory, trauma, achieved by Smith’s eloquent and gripping prose.

Another brilliant feature was the plot-driven nature of the novel that allowed it to operate at a fast-pace yet with moments for reflection. The descriptions also conjured vivid images that complemented the plot. I felt truly immersed in the settings being portrayed which were both frightening and enthralling, especially during the WWl scenes, and New Orleans.

I will end this review by noting how fans of The Great Gatsby should not be scared to read this novel, especially if they felt that character development was missing for Nick and that they want to know more, like I did. Yet I would also add that this book does not require any knowledge of The Great Gatsby, and in fact would just be as good without having ever read it, or having no idea of what it was about. Now that I’ve read NICK, I would love for there to also be prequels focusing on the other characters in the novel, even Gatsby himself who is given a backstory, but not in great detail. I think this will definitely be a possibility in the future!

Follow Nick on his story of navigating danger, trauma, and loss, as he steers through the world around him. You won’t regret it.