The Chosen and the Beautiful is a retelling of The Great Gatsby, which is told from Jordan Baker’s point of view. Except in this version, Jordan is Vietnamese and has been adopted into the Baker family (via a Missionary member of the family who adopted her in her travels). And oh yes, there is magic—lots and lots of magic.
Full disclosure, I have read The Great Gatsby all of once, seen the Baz Luhrmann movie once, and listened to the Broadway Cast recording of the musical a few times. I am in no way shape or form an expert in the source material. That did not diminish my enjoyment of the book. Yes, the main plot points are there, Jay Gatsby has a lot of feelings for Daisy, Daisy’s cousin Nick has newly arrived in New York and becomes somewhat entangled with Jordan, and then things come to a climactic end. To my somewhat fuzzy recollection, the major plot points are hit here, but the story is told via Jordan.
She is not with Daisy or Tom all the time, so the story follows her (she is a golf champ in this version as well) as she ventures around a fantastical version of 1920s New York. This is a New York where paper can be brought to life via magic, people make deals with demons, and drink demons’ blood (it’s quite in fashion to do that – although prohibition has cracked down on that as well as alcohol), and where queer spaces can be somewhat protected and entrance limited to those friendly, via magical spells. The story also explores Daisy and Jordona’s relationship and the ties that bind them via flashbacks to the main story.
As Jordan narrates herself in the novel:
“At a distance, it might have seemed as if my entire summer was occupied with time at Daisy’s and a rather remarkable party at Gatsby’s. However, it was a crowded summer, and it was not until later when I could thread the steps to disaster together like glass beads on a string, that those times stood out at all”
Jordan is busy, okay. And while the story has magic in it, it is also rooted in the reality of the time. Jordan operates in a strange space, she is Vietnamese and always an outsider to the wealthy crowd she runs with because of her ethnicity. She is also queer, and carefully navigating that in a time and space where she can be queer amongst those in the know, but not to the world at large.
If you know the story of Gatsby you know where things are going, but the story builds in everything that has come before the end. Making the ending fit in this fantastical, magical and terrible version of New York that the author has created. There is a part at the end that made me sort of want to stop and re-read the book from the beginning just to read with that knowledge. Not just because I wanted to look for potential clues, but because I loved this book.
The writing is fantastic, I recognized a few lines lifted from the original novel, but the narration is delightful all around. Jordan is not an ideal heroine, she has her faults, but I still enjoyed seeing everything play out from her point of view. Gatsby’s presence looms over the novel, and his actions drive much of what is happening, but he’s a little removed from the narrative. Jordan is not spending that much time with him after all.
I loved the world-building that went into this, and I loved how magic was woven into the everyday lives of these characters. I also enjoyed how magic didn’t magically remove real-world issues, such as racism, classism, sexism, and hints of PTSD, that are referenced throughout the novel.
This was the first novel by Nghi Vo that I read, but I have read her short fiction (the Singing Hills Cycle novellas). She has a couple of other novels (and a sequel to this one coming in 2025!) that I am looking forward to reading.