Too Enticing to Resist: A Guest Post by Kyra Davis Lurie
Beautifully original in its retelling of a classic, The Great Mann thrives in the world of its pages, transporting readers into a narrative of wealth, race, class and fame. Thematically woven into American history, this is an impactful read. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Kyra Davis Lurie on writing The Great Mann.
Hardcover $28.00
The Great Mann: A Novel
The Great Mann: A Novel
In Stock Online
Hardcover $28.00
In this poignant retelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.’s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities—and explosive tensions.
In this poignant retelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.’s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities—and explosive tensions.
“…the most beautiful Negro homes I have ever seen.”
Those are the words of Langston Hughes after he visited the Black owned mansions of Los Angeles’ West Adams Heights. These were homes with expansive grounds and sweeping views. “Palatial.” That’s how Hughes described them.
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for close to two decades, and until 2021, I didn’t know such a neighborhood ever existed. If I hadn’t been listening to my public radio station, KCRW, when they did a story about the history of West Adams Heights, I’d still be in the dark.
But I was listening. I learned this place was L.A.’s Beverly Hills before we had a Beverly Hills. The old monied folk who once lived there started selling their mansions after the stock market crash of 1929. But the only people who had money to buy were the newly wealthy African Americans. Black oil tycoons, hoteliers, business moguls and movie stars. It was in this rarefied pocket of L.A. that the first Black Oscar winner, Hattie McDaniel, threw gala soirees in her 9-bedroom home. Her guest list included Bing Crosby, Clark Gable and Lena Horne.
Duke Ellington was her entertainment.
By the 1940s West Adam Heights had taken on a new moniker: Sugar Hill.
When I heard that story my first thought was; This sounds like The Great Gatsby. Except it’s real. And it’s Black.
The Great Mann, my Black reimagining of The Great Gatsby, was born from that thought. I set it in 1945, right here in L.A.’s Sugar Hill.
The more I considered it, the more obvious the concept became. The Great Gatsby explores the perils and allures of capitalism. Self-invention and re-invention are the prevailing motifs woven through Fitzgerald’s story. Jay Gatsby is the epitome of a self-made man.
But so was every single affluent Black man or woman who lived in the first half of the 20th century. It is, after all, African Americans who collectively rejected the roles we were initially assigned by Western society. Unshackled, but still burdened by racism, we forged new pathways to prosperity and changed our story, thereby changing the story of our nation.
And I can’t think of a community that has had a more complicated relationship with capitalism.
Of course, like the book that inspired it, The Great Mann is also a story about friendships, ambitions, long lost love and fresh rivalries, all timeless themes that have both enhanced and wreaked havoc on the lives of people of every race and creed.
The opportunity to elevate a little-known but important piece of Black history by marrying it to Fitzgerald’s famous American story was too enticing to resist, particularly when the two fit together so perfectly.
And maybe, when Hattie McDaniel, donning diamonds and a mink stole, asked her maid to fill the glasses of her guests with another round of champagne before Duke Ellington began his next set…maybe she too was thinking about how her life resembled something from the pages of The Great Gatsby.