Lurie

Kyra Davis Lurie’s ‘The Great Mann,’ a Black reimagining of ‘The Great Gatsby,’ combines a family story with a little-known part of L.A. history.

By Kyra Davis Lurie Crown: 320 pages, $28 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.

In 2022, Kyra Davis Lurie heard a story on KCRW’s “Curbed Los Angeles” about the residents of South L.A.’s West Adams Heights, nicknamed Sugar Hill after a community of wealthy Black Harlemites.

Learning about the sumptuous soirees Academy Award-winning actor Hattie McDaniel hosted in her Sugar Hill mansion, Lurie realized there was a hidden Black history waiting for her to unearth.

But how she created the enthralling historical novel “The Great Mann” is a story that owes as much to Lurie’s ability to reinvent herself as it does to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” the iconic 20th century critique of the American dream, which provided a touchstone for the novel.