Trap White: six degrees of separation

My first link is also on Long Island, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925). For many readers, it has lasting appeal, beyond high school assignments, for its depiction of human desires and shortcomings and of those who try to break into the world of the elite. Last summer my sister, brother-in-law and niece went to see a musical version at the American Repertory Theater. It was too dark for us, but still fascinating.

I’m actually a bigger fan of another book set on Long Island, The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille (1990), who died about a week ago. The Gold Coast is the name for the wealthiest part of Long Island. The plot centers on John Sutter, a lawyer who lives there with his wife Susan, and how their lives change when a famous mafia don moves into the neighborhood. I wonder why no one ever made a movie of this book?

My third link is DeMille, who was so generous in fading other writers’ books that when I worked in publishing we (affectionately) called him a quotation whore. So I was amused to see writer Joseph Finder’s appreciation for a quote DeMille gave him for his thriller: The Moscow Club (1991).

Another book with a Moscow connection is The Second Lady by Irving Wallace (1980), which I just finished. I can’t remember who recommended this, but I’m a big fan of copycat stories. This is a very unusual situation: the KGB decides to replace the wife of the American president with an actress (with the help of plastic surgery and years of training) while she visits Russia. It is somewhat explicit about the details undertaken to fool the president once the impostor is in place. How will she fool the president? Will anyone realize that the real First Lady is missing?

In First lady by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (2000), the widowed first lady also disappears – but this time those around her know she is missing! She has gone on the run to escape her responsibilities and live an ordinary life, so she disguises herself with an attractive stranger and two little girls whom he guides across the country.

My last link is more First Ladies: Patriot Hearts: A Novel by the Founding Mothers by Barbara Hambly (2007) (my review), covers the lives of Dolley Madison, Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Sally Hemings from the 1770s to 1814. Of course, Sally Hemings was Thomas Jefferson’s slave, not his wife.

So I connected Long Islandis set primarily in Ireland, with books set in New York’s Long Island, Washington, DC, Moscow and back to DC. Have you read any of this? Next month (November 2, 2024) we’ll start with Sally Rooney’s latest release, Intermezzo.