Andrew Newman

2 weeks ago | publicbooks.org | Andrew Newman |Megan Cummins

In 2004, an 11th-grader named Judd Cramer at Mountain Lakes High School in New Jersey was assigned to read the 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. “I did not engage with it as much as I wish I had,” he explained to me a few years ago by email. “I only studied what was necessary for the test—themes, etc.” But several years later, in 2011, he read it again. This time, Cramer wasn’t a student; he was working as a labor economist for the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.