--- description: This is the first novel by the award-winning short story writer Stephanie Powell Watts title: Review: 'No One Is Coming to Save Us' Puts Gatsby in a Black North Carolina Community image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cd620f05e4c8873/6988c05bab6d77b2916ad667/no-one-is-coming-to-save-us.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) ## Ideas Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Books](/tag/books/) ## Books Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Review: _No One Is Coming to Save Us_ Puts _Gatsby_ in a Black North Carolina Community by [Sarah Begley](/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 31, 2017 9:00 PM CUT  Ecco by [Sarah Begley](/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 31, 2017 9:00 PM CUT 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 "undefined")— 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/ "undefined") 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 "undefined") 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 "undefined"). In the best possible way, this is the kind of book that makes a reader yearn for her next one. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4716518/review-no-one-is-coming-to-save-us-puts-gatsby-in-a-black-north-carolina-community/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4716518/review-no-one-is-coming-to-save-us-puts-gatsby-in-a-black-north-carolina-community/"},"headline":"Review: No One Is Coming to Save Us Puts Gatsby in a Black North Carolina Community","datePublished":"2017-03-31T21:00:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:05:31.497Z","description":"This is the first novel by the award-winning short story writer Stephanie Powell Watts","url":"https://time.com/4716518/review-no-one-is-coming-to-save-us-puts-gatsby-in-a-black-north-carolina-community/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cd620f05e4c8873/6988c05bab6d77b2916ad667/no-one-is-coming-to-save-us.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cd620f05e4c8873/6988c05bab6d77b2916ad667/no-one-is-coming-to-save-us.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"no-one-is-coming-to-save-us","caption":"","creditText":"Ecco","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4716518/review-no-one-is-coming-to-save-us-puts-gatsby-in-a-black-north-carolina-community/","name":"Review: No One Is Coming to Save Us Puts Gatsby in a Black North Carolina Community"}}]}] ```