At its end, he wonders what his life would have been like if he'd kept up his interest in music. N courses with Archie AMmons, though I did hear him read several times. But I was in comp lit and most of my grad work was in medieval studies or European romanticism. Those were the days. I really enjoy the emotionally dead-on but very reserved and British fiction of Margaret Drabble, A.S. Byatt, and Doris Lessing, and to some extent Iris Murdoch.
Male writers welcome, too.
Both should fit the bill. Try THe Blue Flower and Memento Mori. Faulkner's style is simply amazing and I've been busy copying many of his sentences into a notebook for future review. He's not for everyone, mind you, and as an avid Chekhov fanatic, it took me awhile to get used to Faulkner's curling, vivid prose. It was definitely worth the effort.