Fast cars and beautiful women at Nirvana: W. Gould Brokaw, the real Jay Gatsby
W. Gould Brokaw at the wheel of his Renault racing car, Ormond Beach, 1904.
Dan wrote up a very thoughtful piece last week on the idea that troubled used car dealer and bootlegger Max Gerlach was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s inspiration for the Great Gatsby. It’s a theory that Fitzgerald scholars have floated before, but Dan examined it from the car angle, with access to materials from recently digitized sources that previous investigators didn’t have. His conclusion was that, more likely, Ger…