The Great Gatsby plays in the Moonstruck Theater Company, in Marlboro, Mass., through Nov. 2.

One of the most evocative passages in Fitzgerald's 180-page prose poem is his description of returning home from school by train to Minnesota for Christmas. I took similar train trips "home'' myself  -- albeit going east -- for years each December. And I  can imagine the long trip, "over the dark fields of the Republic,'' to St. Paul, where some of my family lived in Fitzgerald's neighborhood on Summit Avenue.

--Robert Whitcomb