Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's periphery, he was in the trenches and tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. He embarks on a redemptive transcontinental journey that takes him from a doomed, whirlwind romance in Paris to the debauchery and violence of New Orleans.