In American Icon: Fitzgerald's The great Gatsby in critical and cultural context, Beuka attempts to trace the novel through its history as the titular "American Icon" and its acceptance into the canon as such, focussing heavily on its reception throughout its early print run from 1925 until its reception at time of publication.

"I’m thirty,” I said. “I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor." It is my favorite line from the novel, and could I have written 1000 words on that alone I would have.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ken Kesey: two authors separated by a great many things including their practicing time periods and political ideologies, nevertheless both centered their defining works of fiction around the folly of American culture and society, Fitzgerald during the jazz age and Kesey during the political movements of the 1960s.