Book cover art by Glenn Arthur; Book cover design by Nita Congress

New Twist on an American Classic:

Daisy Buchanan's Daughter

A Novel by Tom Carson

Anyone who has read F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece of American literature,
The Great Gatsby, has longed to know what was in the future for Fitzgerald's characters, including the daughter of the glamorous Daisy Buchanan, who was the epitome of Jazz Age debutantes toying with new ideas, new people. Along comes Tom Carson, a man with
an imagination, who can keep that imagination running full steam ahead while dealing with the realities of "The American Century," the one, according to political pundits, that we no longer are in. Pamela Buchanan, Daisy's daughter, is Carson's vehicle for a rollicking romp through
the century that begins in the Jazz Age and takes us into the war in Iraq. Carson's sharp powers of observation, honed as a non-fiction writer for national magazines, such as GQ, to which he currently contributes the film column, give the reader the sense of time and place that ground this picaresque novel in reality and at the same time titillate the reader with the humor of pecurliarly American anecdotal passages dealing with politics, culture, and fashion.

Reading this wonderful new novel in air-conditioned comfort has been the perfect way to spend the Fourth of July weekend in New Orleans. I will be disappointed if someone does not option this film and get it to the big screen immediately. I can't wait to hear the musical score someone will write for Daisy Buchanan's Daughter. And I can't wait to see what a talented director such as Ron Shelton (Blaze) or Mike Nichols (Charlie Wilson's War) will do with it and who will want be cast as Pamela.

In the meantime, come to meet Tom Carson and buy his book, when he appears at
Meet the Authors: Two Toms, Wednesday, August 10 at Faulkner House, 6 to 8 p. m., an event which also will feature Tom Piazza, author of the new non-fiction book, Devil Sent the Rain.
—Rosemary James, Co-Founder, Faulkner Society, and author/editor of My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy by Her Sons, Daughters, and Lovers and co-author of Plot or Politics?

What the Critics and other Authors Have to Say
Who could have predicted the daughter of Tom and Daisy Buchanan would find herself, at
the age of 86, a crotchety, irreverent, foul-mouthed blogger living in Washington, DC, nursing an obsession for Kirsten Dunst? Or that her life would intersect, scandalously, with Lyndon Baines Johnson’s? Or that Nick Carraway would find religion? By the time you finish reading this trippy, hilarious, brilliant metamemoir of a novel, you may need a refresher in 20th Century history to parse fact from fiction.
— Susan Coll, author of Beach Week, Acceptance, and Rockville Pike

Tom Carson’s Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter is an uproarious, antic, tender, and proudly huge novel, a turtlecrackingly thick book (“1.8 pounds” says Amazon.com) that earns its status as an American epic even while it redefines what a literary epic is.
– Mark Athitakis, Washington City Paper

Tom Carson’s new novel is simultaneously an epic sequel to The Great Gatsby, a tour-de-force metanarrative of the last 90 years of American history, and a dazzling feat of old-fashioned storytelling. The octogenarian narrator of Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter is by turns wistful, sarcastic, bemused, nostalgic, furious, and scathingly funny as she evokes — intimately, pungently, and in gorgeous detail — the best and worst century in human history (so far). She is the first great literary character of the new millennium, and her all-encompassing story is some sort of crazy masterpiece.
— James Hynes, author of Next and The Lecturer’s Tale

To the generations of Fitzgerald readers who wondered what became of Daisy Buchanan’s daughter, Tom Carson has the answer. She grew up not careless, but witty, seductive, alarmingly intelligent, and possessed of supernal powers of observation. She lived nine decades that swerved to include everything from prewar depression, to war coverage, to Cold War power-jockeying and well beyond, with Broadway, Hollywood, and jet-set stopovers aplenty. She did it all with an eye that took in everything from the way her contemporaries were wearing their suits to what lies they told the public and each other. And she recorded it
all in a playful, imaginative and extremely funny narrative–and posted it online. Great dames of the 20th century, open your ranks: Pam Buchanan is part of the sisterhood.
— Farran Smith Nehme, author of The Self-Styled Siren

As brilliant as fireworks exploding over the Washington Monument, Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter is that rarest of triumphs – a laugh out loud funny novel that’s also dead serious. Conjuring an American landscape in which fictional characters seem as real as flesh-and-blood people, Tom Carson’s unforgettable heroine escapes from The Great Gatsby to take us on a tour-de-force guided tour of the past century, from flipped-out flappers to Dubya’s dream of the orgastic future. Here is history seen through the looking glas— delirious, diabolically witty, and absolutely unique.
— John Powers, Critic at Large for NPR’s Fresh Air With Terry Gross and author of Sore Winners

There beyond the groves of West Egg, in a secret corner of Gatsby’s mansion, is an unmarked door onto the loony American century of this dazzling novel. Once again Tom Carson commits an extravagant act of imagination — magnificently written, and as seditious and blindingly smart as it is irresistible and laugh-out-loud fun.
—Steve Erickson, author of Zeroville and Our Ecstatic Days

Take a skippy, dizzy, dazzling joyride with a chick who cracks the East and West Eggs wide open. The old lady holding the gun and the keyboard may be Daisy Buchanan’s daughter, but she’s the stylish stepchild of Nabokov, blogging about what happened after Fitzgerald set down his pen. Her own wild adventures—literary, sexual, historical—anticipate a fateful phone call from one of the great villains of recent years. Pammie is the dame-iest of dames, and this is the rompiest of reads. Huzzah!
— Susann Cokal, author of Mirabilis and Breath and Bones

In this inventive and masterful novel, Tom Carson takes us inside the privileged post-Gatsby world of the iconic Buchanans, bringing to bear his exquisite and confident imagination as he presents the world of Daisy Buchanan’s daughter–a world no less fraught and socially dangerous than the one in which Fitzgerald’s characters roamed. Carson’s skill with multiple voices brilliantly illuminates the kaleidoscopic sense of identity one invariably finds in a brittle milieu. The reader will be captivated.
— Thaisa Frank, author of Heidegger’s Glasses and A Brief History of Camouflage
Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter is an acute, hilarious and moving vision of the 20th century as refracted through two unique sensibilities: that of its indefatigable narrator, and that of the supremely witty, deeply wise, and endlessly playful writer who dreamed her up.
— Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies/Some Came Running

Sprawling, clever, flamboyant, recklessly ambitious, Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter takes gigantic risks and delivers gigantic rewards. There aren’t many people writing novels like Tom Carson, but one may be all weneed.
— Geoff Nicholson, author of Bleeding London and Gravity’s Volkswagen