Had there been no Scott Fitzgerald, Louis Auchincloss might have written a better and more original novel than [The House of the Prophet] in which Felix Leitner is a disguised Jay Gatsby whose story is narrated by a Nick Caraway named Roger Cutter. While this is an interesting tale, better than most that are foisted on the public by present-day publishers, this reader is constantly distracted by the ghost of Gatsby. There are differences, of course, but it is the similarities that are striking, and Auchincloss' book suffers.

Gatsby is a disarming romantic with an all consuming dream that readers empathize with, even as they laugh at the naiveté of a man who is all heart and very little head. But they cannot smile at Felix Leitner, who suffers from the same ethnic and social handicaps, for he is an intellectual whose cold acumen elicits feelings of inferiority...