NVN Monday: TO GATSBY

by Devon Balwit

USA Today Instagram graphic, November 3, 2025

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A hundred years since Fitzgerald gave us The Great Gatsby,
a man we first meet reaching into the dark.
At first, he seems sad, then sinister, then sad again.
Some people have it so easy, old sport,
he marvels in his practiced accent. We know. We can see 
their ballrooms scintillating, distant and unreachable. 
We gather at their property line and try to make sense of their hilarity.
The vast eyes of advertisements—crypto, AI, online gambling—
stand in for God’s: No matter how hard we work 
the lever, the payout goes to the next guy, to someone 
someone’s only heard about. You need cash to sleep 
with another man’s wife. Spoiler: The book ends 
with a bang—a car crash, Gatsby’s murder, a suicide.
Sycophants queued up for his parties. None came to his funeral.

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When not making art, Devon Balwit walks in all weather and edits for Asimov Press, Asterisk Magazine, and Works in Progress.