
American Dreamer: Who Was Jay Gatsby?
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.00 for first 30 days
Buy for $21.76
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Joe Nocera
-
By:
-
Blanchard House
About this listen
Was a real life 1920s crook the inspiration for one of the world's most iconic fictional characters, “The Great Gatsby”?
Just before the small-time bootlegger Max Gerlach died, he tried to reveal his secret: he was the inspiration for the mysterious Jay Gatsby. It’s a nice story, but was he telling the truth? Veteran reporter Joe Nocera and producer Poppy Damon investigate this century-old literary mystery and uncover untold secrets about the Great American Novel.
Content Warning:
The Great Gatsby is a book of its time so you will hear racist and anti-Semitic themes and language that some listeners might find offensive. There will also be references to alcohol and drug abuse, depictions of violence and reference to suicide.
Episode 1: Old sport
It’s July 1923 and a scrawled note from a local bootlegger gives celebrity author F Scott Fitzgerald a bright idea… Joe Nocera begins his quest investigating just who this Max Gerlach really was.
Episode 2: Then came the war
Jay Gatsby tells everyone he’s a military man, a war hero. Max Gerlach gives the same impression. But is Gerlach the man he says he is?
Episode 3: Some big bootlegger
Joe explores the shady world of bootlegging and the mob kingpin who bridges fact and fiction.
Episode 4: The golden girl
For many The Great Gatsby is first and foremost a love story. Joe goes looking for Max Gerlach’s “golden girl”. He finds a marriage – but all is not as it seems.
Episode 5: I love you now – isn’t that enough?
Fun fact: most of the ‘Great American Novel’ was written in France. What can the Fitzgeralds’ tempestuous stint on the Riviera reveal about Jay Gatsby and the man who may have inspired him?
Episode 6: He believed in the green light
Joe digs into how Max’s American Dream went sour. Meanwhile, F Scott Fitzgerald’s problems have only just begun.
Episode 7: Forty acres
Joe is forced to ask if he's had the wrong idea all along as he probes the investigation's biggest curveball.
Episode 8: Ceaselessly into the past
As Joe concludes his investigation, they follow every lead to try and get to the bottom of Max and Scott’s relationship. Just how much of Max Gerlach wound up in “The Great Gatsby”?
©2024 Blanchard House (P)2024 Audible Ltd.
American Dreamer: Who Was Jay Gatsby

About the Presenter

About the Presenter
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
So We Read On
- How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures
- By: Maureen Corrigan
- Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.
-
-
Reading Gatsby as an adult reveals its greatness!
- By Mark on 10-06-14
By: Maureen Corrigan
-
The Great Gatsby at 100
- By: Sheila Liming, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Sheila Liming
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the six lectures of The Great Gatsby at 100, you will join Sheila Liming of Champlain College to revisit the context and culture of the Roaring ‘20s, which inspired the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his disastrous pursuit of Daisy Buchanan. As you’ll discover, while Gatsby is framed as a love story, it’s also a story of the American experience, revealing the unspoken rules of wealth and class and the false promises of self-made success in a world of Old Money privilege.
-
-
Warning: A Woke Perspective
- By P. Steele on 04-23-25
By: Sheila Liming, and others
-
Careless People
- Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby
- By: Sarah Churchwell
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books, delighting audiences across the world. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail the relation of Fitzgerald's classic to the chaotic world he in which he lived. Fitzgerald set his novel in 1922, and Careless People carefully reconstructs the crucial months during which Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald returned to New York in the autumn of 1922.
-
-
Fascinating study of the Fitzgeralds and Jazz Age
- By Sand on 06-11-14
By: Sarah Churchwell
-
Some Unfinished Chaos
- The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- By: Arthur Krystal
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unusual biography Krystal gives us not only the peripatetic and turbulent life of a cultural icon but also the intellectual sweep of a period in history that created our modern America. Some Unfinished Chaos delivers a nuanced portrait of a man whose various sides embodied the trends, passions, and pursuits of the imperfect society that both glorified and dismissed him.
By: Arthur Krystal
-
The Great Gatsby (Dramatized)
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Janine Barris, Nate Corddry, Sarah Drew, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in New York during the Jazz Age, this new adaptation tells the tragic tale of self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby. Consumed with desire for his former lover, Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby draws new neighbor Nick Carraway into his desperate pursuit to win her back—and into their world of lavish wealth, wild parties, and free-flowing liquor.
-
The Great Gatsby
- The Only Authorized Edition
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jesmyn Ward - introduction
- Narrated by: Seth Numrich, Eleanor Lanahan, James L. W. West III
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An all-new recording published for the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby, this production presents the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with an introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.
-
-
What a bunch of vapid jerks!
- By Nel on 05-01-25
By: F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others
-
So We Read On
- How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures
- By: Maureen Corrigan
- Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.
-
-
Reading Gatsby as an adult reveals its greatness!
- By Mark on 10-06-14
By: Maureen Corrigan
-
The Great Gatsby at 100
- By: Sheila Liming, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Sheila Liming
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the six lectures of The Great Gatsby at 100, you will join Sheila Liming of Champlain College to revisit the context and culture of the Roaring ‘20s, which inspired the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his disastrous pursuit of Daisy Buchanan. As you’ll discover, while Gatsby is framed as a love story, it’s also a story of the American experience, revealing the unspoken rules of wealth and class and the false promises of self-made success in a world of Old Money privilege.
-
-
Warning: A Woke Perspective
- By P. Steele on 04-23-25
By: Sheila Liming, and others
-
Careless People
- Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby
- By: Sarah Churchwell
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books, delighting audiences across the world. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail the relation of Fitzgerald's classic to the chaotic world he in which he lived. Fitzgerald set his novel in 1922, and Careless People carefully reconstructs the crucial months during which Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald returned to New York in the autumn of 1922.
-
-
Fascinating study of the Fitzgeralds and Jazz Age
- By Sand on 06-11-14
By: Sarah Churchwell
-
Some Unfinished Chaos
- The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- By: Arthur Krystal
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unusual biography Krystal gives us not only the peripatetic and turbulent life of a cultural icon but also the intellectual sweep of a period in history that created our modern America. Some Unfinished Chaos delivers a nuanced portrait of a man whose various sides embodied the trends, passions, and pursuits of the imperfect society that both glorified and dismissed him.
By: Arthur Krystal
-
The Great Gatsby (Dramatized)
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Janine Barris, Nate Corddry, Sarah Drew, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in New York during the Jazz Age, this new adaptation tells the tragic tale of self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby. Consumed with desire for his former lover, Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby draws new neighbor Nick Carraway into his desperate pursuit to win her back—and into their world of lavish wealth, wild parties, and free-flowing liquor.
-
The Great Gatsby
- The Only Authorized Edition
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jesmyn Ward - introduction
- Narrated by: Seth Numrich, Eleanor Lanahan, James L. W. West III
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An all-new recording published for the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby, this production presents the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with an introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.
-
-
What a bunch of vapid jerks!
- By Nel on 05-01-25
By: F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others
Loved it so much
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not an audiobook
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
fascinating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Dreamy
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Narration was grat
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautiful
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Story and narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
we will never tire of Gatsby
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well produced, informative and engaging
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Joe and Poppy bring Fitzgerald and Gatsby to life
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.