A young man starting out in what should lead to a upper-middle class career hangs out on the fringe of a crowd with serious money and serious roaring 20's lifestyles. He has a chance to get in on it, but maybe it's dirty money? That issue isn't really what this book is about - it's a portrait of the times and those kinds of social circles. Some have it, others don't, people are people. Frighteningly current. The book is very short, very clean. Tragedy that Fitzgerald couldn't continue to crank this kind of material out.

Fitzgerald's first novel, this is the story of Amory Blaine, elite Princeton student in the post WW-I era. Amory is a severe egotist, and as maturity settles in and brings illumination to the state of affairs, he struggles with what he sees. Though the book deserves praise for breaking new ground, that ground is not quite as novel today.