ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Joseph O’Neill is the author of five novels, a collection of short stories, and a family history. His most recent book is the 2024 novel Godwin. His 2008 novel Netherland won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Two of his short stories have won O. Henry Prizes and his stories have been widely anthologized.
His fiction and cultural criticism has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, and Granta. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in Ireland, he grew up in Mozambique, Iran, Turkey, and the Netherlands.
Chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby find narrator Nick Carraway tentatively learning about Jay Gatsby's shady background through a meeting with the notorious gambler Meyer Wolfshiem. Nick is both amazed and amused by Gatsby's prodigious lies about his background as they motor into New York City, crossing the Queensboro Bridge in a famous scene that captures the upheaval of the Jazz Age. After the meeting Nick learns from Jordan Baker the actual connection between Gatsby and Daisy Fay.
