A reporter shows up to interview Gatsby. He is becoming well known enough (and there are enough rumors swirling around him) to become newsworthy. The rumors are now even crazier: that he is involved with a liquor pipeline to Canada, that his mansion is actually a boat.
The narrative suddenly shifts timeframes, and future book-writing Nick interrupts the story to give us some new background details about Gatsby. Jay Gatsby’s real name is James Gatz. His parents were failed farmers. He is an entirely self-made man, so ambitious and convinced of his own success that he transformed himself into his version of the perfect man: Jay Gatsby. Before any of his eventual social and financial success, he spent his nights fantasizing about his future.
James Gatz met Dan Cody, a copper and silver mine millionaire, on Cody’s yacht on Lake Superior. Cody seemed glamorous, and Cody liked Gatz enough to hire him as a kind of jack-of-all-trades for five years. They sailed around, indulged Cody’s alcoholism, and Gatz learned how to be Jay Gatsby. Cody tried to leave him money in his will, but an estranged wife claimed it instead. Nick tells us that Gatsby told him all of these details later, but he wants to dispel the crazy rumors.