Title: Nobody grew but the business
Description: During his lifetime, William Gaddis (1922-1998) evaded biographical questions, never read from his work publicly, and didn't allow his photograph to appear on his book. Before his novel J R (1975) won Gaddis the National Book Award and some measure of renown, he had given up the bohemian world of 1950s Greenwich Village for a series of corporate jobs that both paid the bills and provided an inside view of the encroachment of market values into every corner of American culture. By illustrating the interconnectedness of Gaddis's life and work, Joseph Tabbi, among his foremost interpreters, demystifies the "difficult author" and shows a writer who was as attuned as any to the way Americans talk, and who sensitively chronicled the gradual commodification of artistic endeavor. Illuminating, heartbreaking, and masterful, Tabbi's book gives us the most subtly drawn portrait to date of one of the twentieth century's seminal novelists. -- from dust jacket.
Subjects: Criticism and interpretation, American Authors, Biography, Capitalism in literature, Gaddis, william, 1922-1998, Authors, american, Authors, biography, American literature, history and criticism, 20th century
People: William Gaddis (1922-1998)
Time periods: 20th century