SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
We're getting close to the end of this evening's show, but we are going to beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. And if you heard that and had a visceral flashback to sophomore year English, you are not alone. "The Great Gatsby" turned 100 this past week, and for much of that time, the novel, about a man struggling to reinvent himself even with his new wealth, has been taught in high schools across the country, so we have brought in two English teachers to talk about it. Alexandra Howes works at Twin Cities Academy in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which happens to be author F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthplace. And Alonzo Vereen is at Sidwell Friends School in D.C. Welcome to you both.
ALONZO VEREEN: Thank you for having me.
ALEXANDRA HOWES: Thank you for having me.
DETROW: And Alonzo, let me start with you. What was your relationship with this book? Did you appreciate it from the beginning? Did it take a few times? Did it have to grow on you?
VEREEN: You know, initially it was quite an antagonistic relationship. I mean, I am a Black man from the American South. Let's start there. And I first read "Gatsby" as a 20-, 21-year-old college student, and I really struggled with it. It wasn't just the language and the structure but the very ideas in "Gatsby" and the characters who populate "Gatsby" or don't populate "Gatsby." You know, "Gatsby" is set in the '20s - right? - in New York City, but there are only three Black characters in the novel, and they're minor characters. The language around them is kind of crass - two bucks and a girl, the yokes of their eyeballs rolling around their heads. So it took a while for me to find a way to see myself in a novel and to see why it was so lauded.
DETROW: Alexandra, what about you? How have you thought about this book, and how has that changed, if at all, over the years?
HOWES: Certainly, I guess, for me, it was love at first read. So I guess for me, it's always been one of my favorite things to teach because of the obvious local connection. It's very neat to be able to say this author literally grew up blocks away from you and struggled with some things as well. And the ways I go about teaching it, I do a little fake speakeasy with ginger ale and Sprite.
DETROW: When you do your speakeasy with ginger ale, do students recreate the meme from the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio?
HOWES: Yes.
DETROW: And Alonzo, you alluded to this a little bit earlier, but I would love you to spell out the way that you've kind of taken an outside-the-box approach to race and this text, specifically Jay Gatsby's race.
VEREEN: Yeah. When I was trying to access the novel myself, I stumbled upon Carlyle Van Thompson's interpretation that Gatsby is a Black man passing, and I was drawn to that interpretation because it's a provocative idea. And I must say that whenever I present this idea to my students, they say, you know, Mr. Vereen, that's a stretch. But when I ask them to do the work of finding textual evidence to prove whatever interpretation they've already landed on, they begin to become a bit less skeptical. Gatsby is unraced. His race and ethnicity are both ambiguous, and so as a result, he can be, in a way, any American. We can all layer our identities on top of Gatsby and find a way for us to exist within one of America's greatest novels, and that seems to get them to buy in to the text.
HOWES: And a lot of students, I feel, depending on where they come from, can connect to Gatsby's story. He has hopes and dreams, which - teenagers are in that space. I think that's what's so powerful about the book, is students being able to identify with these characters and that a lot of it has to do with Gatsby himself.
DETROW: Both of you are well, well aware that we are living in a moment of backlash to that type of educational approach, to just about any sort of different approach when it comes to race in a classic text, right? So what, to you, is the value and importance of making a text connect with the students in this kind of way?
VEREEN: Well, fiction is not anthropology. And so one thing that I try to do with teaching "Gatsby" is to just let the students know that we cocreate this text. You can say that Gatsby is Black. You can say that Nick's gay. You just have to identify the evidence that backs up your point. And allowing students the opportunity and the space to stretch their imaginations as far as they possibly can, I think, is one of the responsibilities we have.
HOWES: Yeah, I'd agree with a lot of that 'cause I believe my job isn't to tell my students what to think. It's to give them a space to explore ideas and not to necessarily shut them down as right or wrong but rather, why do I think this? I want them thinking critically. I think it just makes them better people that they're thinking about the things they're coming across in their lives.
DETROW: I feel like I was back in high school English in the best possible way with this conversation.
HOWES: (Laughter).
DETROW: It was always my favorite class. That was Alexandra Howes and Alonzo Vereen. Thank you so much for joining us and talking to us about "The Great Gatsby."
VEREEN: Thank you.
HOWES: Of course. It was a pleasure. Thank you.
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