--- title: Review: No One Is Coming to Save Us, a North Carolina Gatsby description: This is the first novel by the award-winning short story writer Stephanie Powell Watts canonical: https://time.com/4716518/review-no-one-is-coming-to-save-us-puts-gatsby-in-a-black-north-carolina-community/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-31T21:00:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:05:31.497Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Review: 'No One Is Coming to Save Us' Puts Gatsby in a Black North Carolina Community og:description: This is the first novel by the award-winning short story writer Stephanie Powell Watts og:url: https://time.com/4716518/review-no-one-is-coming-to-save-us-puts-gatsby-in-a-black-north-carolina-community/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cd620f05e4c8873/6988c05bab6d77b2916ad667/no-one-is-coming-to-save-us.jpg?branch=production&width=1120&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1120 og:image:height: 630 og:image:alt: no-one-is-coming-to-save-us og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: 'No One Is Coming to Save Us' Puts Gatsby in a Black North Carolina Community twitter:description: This is the first novel by the award-winning short story writer Stephanie Powell Watts twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cd620f05e4c8873/6988c05bab6d77b2916ad667/no-one-is-coming-to-save-us.jpg?branch=production&width=1120&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Review: _No One Is Coming to Save Us_ Puts _Gatsby_ in a Black North Carolina Community > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=202af60e-c59d-4de8-9dae-fdd6fde51d80&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Mar 31, 2017 9:00 PM UTC  Ecco by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Mar 31, 2017 9:00 PM UTC Jay Gatsby is transported to contemporary North Carolina in Stephanie Powell Watts’s new book [_No One Is Coming to Save Us_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062472984/?tag=timecom-20)— but here, he’s J.J. Ferguson, a machinist who’s made his money from government and corporate contracts, and the company he seeks is not the demimonde but the precariously middle-class black community where he came of age. Watts picks and chooses which elements of the [F. Scott Fitzgerald](http://time.com/4481991/f-scott-fitzgerald-stories-new-book/) story to keep (car accident, yes; wild parties, no). The looseness frees her to build a narrative that stands on its own terms. J.J.’s former flame Ava, now married and regretfully childless, is a clear stand-in for Daisy, but there’s no Nick Carraway narrator here. If anyone offers a similar inside-outside perspective on the romance, it’s Ava’s mother, Sylvia, a woman whose pain and disillusionment do not augur a happy ending. Like Fitzgerald, Watts excels at physical descriptions that give texture to the world of the novel: a road curls “like a potato peel,” a fingernail overhangs “a dirty dust line … like the vein in shrimp.” She also knows a thing or two about heartache, a must for any [_Gatsby_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743273567/?tag=timecom-20) pastiche: “When you love somebody you decide what you can take and what will kill you and work backward from what will kill you,” one unlucky-in-love character explains. “It’s as simple as that.” Though disjointed in places, the novel conjures the “Is that all there is?” mood of _Gatsby_ to great effect. To call Watts “promising” would diminish her significant accomplishments, which include a Whiting Award and a Pushcart Prize for her [short fiction](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1886157790/?tag=timecom-20). 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