A Frolic of His Own

by William Gaddis

Overview

A dazzling fourth novel by the author of The Recognitions, Carpenter’s Gothic, and JR uses his considerable powers of observation and satirical sensibilities to take on the American legal system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439125472
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	06/18/2013
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. was a novelist and author of War Without Bloodshed, a Simon&Schuster book.

Date of Birth:

December 29, 1922

Date of Death:

December 17, 1998

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

East Hampton, New York

Education:

Attended Harvard University (no degree)

Editorial Reviews

...[An] exceptionally rich novel....[R]eaders who laugh their way through to the end may find it impossible to get the rhythms and sounds of [the] voices out of their imaginations.

New York Times Books of the Century

Gaddis--for all the brevity of his oeuvre--sits atop the Mount Olympus of U.S. experimental writers. His fourth novel in nearly 40 years will only help to secure his position there; it rests expansively on a theme representing one of the most flabbergasting aspects of contemporary American life, our litigiousness. Oscar Crease is a college teacher; author of a play derived from his grandfather's Civil War experiences. He's livid because a Hollywood producer has lifted his idea for use as a movie. Oscar's suing, and over the duration of the legal life of his case, he and all the people around him engage in conversation about the issue at hand as well as side issues and life in more general terms. Thus the novel is primarily a stream of dialogue often wandering far away from--but always returning to--its main premise. As Henry James wrote novels and short stories about the artist at the mercy of the mundane world, so Gaddis has woven a complex tapestry about the same situation. Readers familiar with Gaddis and/or appreciative of experimentation in narrative will be served a banquet of ideas and language; those whose tastes tend toward the traditional will leave the table early and go back to the likes of Willa Cather.

Brad Hooper