Xochitl Gonzalez, the bestselling author of OLGA DIES DREAMING and ANITA DE MONTE LAUGHS LAST, returns with LAST NIGHT IN BROOKLYN, a sharply written, gender-bent reimagining of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s THE GREAT GATSBY.

In the spring of 2007, Alicia Canales Forten is watching her future unfold. The Brooklyn-born daughter of a Puerto Rican woman and a privileged Black man, she is (her mother hopes) a ticket to a better, brighter future. Though her father initially denies her and her mother, a marriage to a kindly woman changes Alicia’s life forever when “Forten” is officially slapped on the end of her name, and she is able to enter the world of the elites --- at least for two weeks during the summer, when she is invited to her grandparents’ home in Martha’s Vineyard. 

Alicia feels the dissonance of her separate lives. In one, her grandmother sagely advises women on the power of sex and its ability to hold their husbands’ attention (despite the fact that her grandfather has been absent her whole life). In the other, she ascends to the halls of Yale and the sphere of its most privileged students, all of whom think of Brooklyn as the untamed wild bordering their glittering Manhattan. 

"At once a love letter to Brooklyn and a coming-of-age drama of a young woman torn between worlds, this is a wonderfully successful, deeply satisfying retelling of a classic that continues to hold great meaning in our time."

When we meet Alicia, she seems to have finally found a balance. She is engaged to a nice, if milquetoast, man on his way to becoming a doctor, and she has started to earn attention at her job as a copywriter at an ad agency. Adhering to her mother’s ambitions (namely, get a man and keep him), Alicia dutifully goes to work five days a week, then takes the bus to her fiancé

’s medical school in upstate New York to perform her “wifely” duties. Her mother assures her that this is the life she should want. And yet, as she watches every day unfold just like the last --- especially as compared to the vibrant, ever-changing streets of Brooklyn --- she begins to feel suffocated.

When Lorraine, a Brooklynite friend, invites Alicia into the world of Fort Greene, she discovers nonwhite faces, artistic bohemians, exorbitant bar tabs and piles of gleaming cocaine, but also community and advocacy. The Brooklyn from which Alicia has long been instructed to pull herself up and out of is changing. Suddenly, the very same classmates who once turned their noses up at her hometown are buying property in the area, showing up at loft parties in designer duds and purses worth a year of rent, and even demanding that she show them around and invite them into the “exoticism” of the scene. But already Alicia can see that they’re missing it --- the thing that makes Brooklyn so magical, the shared history of a place that has always seemed to be relegated to exist only to serve its more privileged neighbors. She now has the chance to experience it all.

Alicia quietly ends her engagement and moves in with Lorraine in Fort Greene, where their apartment neighbors that of La Garza, a self-made fashion designer who hosts Gatsby-like parties: seemingly thrown together at a moment’s notice, yet decked out in hibachi stations and cater waiters. La Garza is the jewel of the new Brooklyn developing before Alicia’s eyes. Raw, edgy and vibrant, she represents the melting pot of Alicia’s youth. But with her recent announcement that she plans to take her fashion brand public, she also invites the elite into Brooklyn, which means Alicia’s cousin, Devon Forten (aka Daisy).

An entitled banker, Devon seems to serve as proof of the American Dream. Yes, his family is Black, but they also summer in Martha’s Vineyard and are able to buy entire Brooklyn buildings in cash. Unbeknownst to Alicia, Devon and La Garza were once head-over-heels in love, their fairy-tale romance cut short by the realization that no Forten could ever possibly marry an uneducated, Brooklyn-born, Puerto Rican woman, no matter how dazzling her sartorial choices. Seeing a chance to hurt the man who almost cost her everything, La Garza uses Alicia to get close to Devon under the guise of securing funding for her IPO. But the ties between them run deep, and with substantial sums of money on the line, their reunion becomes precarious for everyone in their circle --- especially Devon’s wife, Marla.

As Alicia comes into her own in her beautiful but rapidly changing city, Devon and La Garza’s investment-turned-affair hurls them all at the intersection of ambition, greed, artistry and gentrification. All the while, apartment buildings are being sold, lifers are being evicted, and behemoth complexes are getting erected, casting a shadow over the light that was once Alicia’s childhood. Reflecting on that tumultuous summer years later at the closing of a beloved neighborhood bar, she recounts the events that led to the end of La Garza and her dazzling parties, chronicling them against the history of a city that is never not on the brink of change. 

At once a love letter to Brooklyn and a coming-of-age drama of a young woman torn between worlds, this is a wonderfully successful, deeply satisfying retelling of a classic that continues to hold great meaning in our time. Although Xochitl Gonzalez employs the structure of THE GREAT GATSBY to build her plot, she makes the tale entirely her own. She reflects on the changing nature of her beloved Brooklyn as only a native can: with eyes set forward, a heart anchored in the past, and hands that open to any neighbor who needs them. 

Vivid, immersive, and populated by fascinating, unforgettable characters, LAST NIGHT IN BROOKLYN carries with it the air of a summer night in its titular city: everyone is young and beautiful, the drinks are flowing, and everything is full of potential.