Thank you to Tordotcom for sending me a copy of Don’t Sleep With the Dead in exchange for an honest review.
About Don’t Sleep With the Dead by Nghi Vo
Nick Carraway has built a quiet life in 1930s New York, observing its glittering elite while hiding who he truly is — and what he’s trying to forget. Still reeling from the events of 1922, and with World War II on the horizon, Nick is forced to confront the past when a familiar face resurfaces: Jay Gatsby, seemingly back from the dead and unwilling to be forgotten. As war looms and old secrets rise, Nick must finally confront the ghost he never outran.
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Queer Longing
Full of angst and queer longing, Don’t Sleep With the Dead is a standalone novella companion to The Chosen and the Beautiful. That said, it definitely helps to read the latter, or at least have some familiarity with The Great Gatsby.
Don’t Sleep With the Dead takes place 20 years after the infamous summer that ended with Gatsby’s death. Now, Nick Carraway is loosely famous after writing his version of a novel that becomes The Great Gatsby. His only friend, Jordan Baker, has left the country, and he’s truly and completely alone. This Nick is older and more jaded than the one we know from The Chosen and the Beautiful.
As a result, it makes perfect sense that a fleeting glimpse of someone long dead sends him spiraling. This is a character at war with himself and with society, who finds it completely impossible to fit in. Why wouldn’t he chase after the ghost of the man who made him feel real?
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A Reinvention
Nghi Vo leans deeper into the horror elements in this installation than she did for its predecessor. Her words conjure an eerie unreality lurking below the familiar surface of New York City. The devils here are real, waiting to make deals with the unsuspecting — or the desperate — and they’re nothing like humanity. Some scenes are truly gruesome, resulting in a dark, spiraling fever dream. Terrifying images move by quickly enough that you don’t have time to think too much about them. Instead, they’re lurking in the back of your mind long after the final page.
With Don’t Sleep with the Dead, Vo reinvents a long-familiar, classic tale for an angst-loving audience. She made a story that most people know into something completely unique.
Don’t Sleep With the Dead is out now and available from your local independent bookstore or on Bookshop.org.
TW: body horror, gore, homophobia, police brutality, rape, sexual content, war
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