On "Careless People": A Book Review

Title: Careless People

Author: Sarah Churchwell

Genre: Non-Fiction

About the book…

Careless People provides a glimpse into the 1920’s, F. Scott Fitzgerald writing of The Great Gatsby, and the crime that may have influenced the writing of it. 

What I think…

While I tend to focus less on the 1920s than other decades, I think I enjoyed this book all the more because of it. It really looks at so much more than the Fitzgeralds doing more to paint a picture of the world they lived in, along with the others who inhabited it.

I liked that Churchwell alternated the subjects that the book focused on and then managed to bring the different subjects together to provide a broader understanding. I also feel that this made the book more enjoyable in that there was no assumption that the reader was an expert in regards to the decade or Fitzgeralds (although, I do feel it would have been helpful to re-read The Great Gatsby and a few other works). Along with the historical facts relating to the lives if Scott and Zelda, Churchwell includes information about slang used at the time and how it changed through the decade, the literary tastes of the time, and, one of my favorite parts, talks about the first traffic lights in New York. 

That a mix of newspaper articles, journal entries, and letters are used to present the information makes it even more interesting.

To sum it all up… 

Much more than a book about F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby, this is a perfect book for anyone interested in learning more about the 1920s.♥