Every night, a green light burns across the water, and every night, Jay Gatsby watches it from his lawn, waiting for the one woman he could never quite have. Behind the mansion, the endless parties, and the fortune built from nothing lies a single, desperate hope: that the past can be bought back if you just have enough money and nerve. Fitzgerald's masterpiece is less a love story than an autopsy of the American Dream — glittering, hollow, and doomed from its first champagne toast. A century after publication, it remains the sharpest, saddest portrait of wanting the wrong thing beautifully ever written. Once you've heard Gatsby's story, you will never look at a party the same way again.