Last Night in Brooklyn

This delicious and gossipy tale explores the power of first love and the dark side of the American dream. I’ve been anticipating Gonzalez’s third novel since she hinted at her “gender-swapped Gatsby” in MMD Book Club in 2024. Here she drops her readers into 2007 Brooklyn, where 26-year-old Alicia moves to bide her time while her fiancé finishes grad school upstate. Her cousin Devon welcomes her to the neighborhood and introduces her to his wife, a bored woman of leisure. Meanwhile, Alicia is befriended by her neighbor La Garza, a larger-than-life fashion designer and the most gossiped about woman in Brooklyn. This friendship sets the group on a collision course with tragedy. I relished this bold, inventive, and oh-so-discussable literary reimagining. For fans of Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming and Rachel Khong’s Real Americans.