After teaching literature courses at NC State for 47 years, Allen Stein self-published his first novel in August 2014, which he describes as a sequel to the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby.
Stein came to NC State in September 1968 after acquiring his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at New York University and his doctorate at Duke University. Since then, he’s taught primarily American literature and written a number of academic books and articles.
Over the last six years, however, he said he has gravitated toward writing fiction and poetry, which he said he had reservations about attempting.
“I didn’t think I could do it,” Stein said. “I thought I was a better interpreter of literature than I was a creator of it.”
Yet since starting his creative writing, he has had four short stories published and a dozen poems either published or in the process of publication. One of his poems received a nomination for the 2015 Pushcart award.
Stein’s interest in literature began at an early age when he started exploring his late father’s book collection.
“Literature had something to say to me about the people around me, and it fascinated me, and I knew from then on I’d like to have a career talking about literature,” he said.
Stein describes his book, Gatsby’s Daughters: A Romance of the Last Century, as a “story within a story.” Its main character is the fictional illegitimate daughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who ends up writing a book which her father had left behind notes for before he died.
He said The Great Gatsby left a tremendous impression on him and he wanted to know what happened next.
“I knew that Gatsby was gone of course, but I thought that somehow, his dream ought to have some resonance,” he said. “And I decided I would do something of a sequel.”
While he originally had the idea to do a story about a son of Jay Gatsby, Stein thought he might violate copyright laws by actually using a character from Fitzgerald’s novel. He also knew he couldn’t mimic Fitzgerald’s writing style.
He then asked the question “what if Fitzgerald had an illegitimate daughter with the woman who was the model for Daisy (Jay Gatsby’s love interest)?”
“I thought that would be interesting,” he said. “I could do something that would keep the spirit of Fitzgerald’s romantic vision of things, the desire for the kind of grandeur that romance can bring us. I could keep that alive but not have to match my writing skills with Fitzgerald’s.”
Tom Lisk, an English professor and a colleague of Stein, said he believes the novel is an interesting take on both a well-known author and a classic piece of literature.
“In some ways, Gatsby’s Daughters might be classified as speculative fiction,” Lisk said. “What if something had happened in the past that didn’t actually happen? What if F. Scott Fitzgerald had had a daughter nobody knew about and she herself, having grown up with her mother and stepfather, finds out belatedly who her biological father was?”
Stein said the book takes place in both the 1920s, when his main character is born, and in the 1940s, when she discovers her true identity and writes her novel. He also said he incorporated jazz music, the real life character whom Fitzgerald based Nick Carraway on, along with many other jests to The Great Gatsby.
“Any fan of Fitzgerald will find the book enjoyable and enlightening,” Lisk said.
Despite his attempts to get an established company to publish the book, Stein said publishers weren’t as interested in it right now. He said this was partly due to the most recent film adaptation with Leonardo DiCaprio in 2013, which received some negative reviews and caused mainstream audiences to have what he called “Gatsby fatigue.”
He said his hope is that it’ll sell well enough that he can go back to publishers, which would lead to mass distribution. Profits, however, are of little interest to him at this point.
“I’m not interested in the money; I’m interested in the readers,” he said.
