“Kruse exerted prodigious effort in producing this exhaustive study of The Great Gatsby. As he writes in his introduction, he tracked down 'material that Fitzgerald either worked with or worked from.' One result of Kruse's efforts is a revealing analysis of Fitzgerald's fascination with Max von Gerlach, the purported model for Jay Gatsby. It turns out that Gerlach was probably only a minor league bootlegger, and that Fitzgerald's interest in him centered around Gerlach's embodiment of the 'quest of identity' that the German immigrant shared with Gatsby. Kruse's meticulous investigation all but solidifies Gerlach as the original for Gatsby. Kruse also turns his attention to the genesis of Tom Buchanan, connecting him to the eugenics movement in vogue during the 1920s and figuring him as an antitype of the Statue of Liberty. In a display of microscopic exegesis, the author offers a dazzling explanation of Fitzgerald's passing reference to 'Kant's window.' Kruse's discussion of Fitzgerald's possible incorporation of other historical and philosophical sources into The Great Gatsby also merits praise. Highly recommended.”
—CHOICE
"[F. Scott Fitzgerald at Work] . . . provides a convincing portrait of a man whose tenacious pursuit of the American Dream speaks to the reality of the life that Fitzgerald breathed into his protagonist."
—F. Scott Fitzgerald Review
“The great strengths of Kruse's study are its originality, its clarity, and its reliance on fresh material and research. These investigations present many new, striking facets both of Fitzgerald himself and his famous novel, which has become over the past twenty years ‘the’ American novel.”
—James L. W. West III, author of William Styron: A Life and The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King
"The great virtue of this study—and, frankly, the fun of reading it—is the way that Kruse's scholarship opens the text up to new, invigorating contexts. Kruse shows how depthless not only Gatsby's interpretation is but also the history that flows through it. At the same time, it's immensely entertaining to follow the author's efforts to establish facts in order to substantiate his readings. I think the method here is as interesting a story as the readings and conclusions."
—Kirk Curnutt, author of The Cambridge Introduction to F. Scott Fitzgerald
