Hamptons Writers Pen Newspaper Series

By: Wayne Robins In my younger and more vulnerable years, an editor gave me some advice: "If you've got writers, ask them to write."

That, at least, is what The Southampton (N.Y.) Press has done. The Long Island weekly -- located 100 miles east of Manhattan within the rich-and-famous, gaudy-and-grotesque, never-ending traffic jam known as "The Hamptons" -- decided to take advantage of the high density of writers who live and/or summer in its midst. The offer: write a chapter about the grandson of Jay Gatsby hanging out in the Hamptons this summer. Like so many of the conspicuously wealthy who tore up the fertile farmland for homes the size of hospitals, he isn't really great. He is, instead, "The Adequate Gatsby."

You can say that "The Adequate Gatsby" has been produced by Joseph Shaw, editor of the Press, and directed by Andrew Botsford, editor of its "Arts & Living" section. Shaw came up with the idea, and Botsford got the project moving when he approached Roger Rosenblatt, the Time essayist who knows everybody who can wield a pen. Rosenblatt wrote the first chapter. "He thought he could start it off for us and get some other people to play along," Botsford said. And he did.

Cartoonist Jules Feiffer foresaw a party with the Mias: "Mia Sorvino, Mia Farrow, Mia Momma, Mia Culpa, and Mia Tarzanujane." Playwright Peter Stone speculated on Gatsby being Jewish; novelist Avery Corman imagined Gatsby as an opera; and syndicated columnist John Leo did a scene with Gatsby in a hot tub with someone named Myles Tufarr and one of the Baldwin brothers.

"What I found fascinating is that after Roger's hilarious opening chapter, the following writers were reluctant to develop any plot line -- a form of politeness, I guess," Leo told E&P Online via e-mail. The series continues through Labor Day, with writers to be announced, at which point "The Adequate Gatsby," along with the summer people, will likely fade away.