American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring

One of the most gifted literary essayists of his generation defends stylistic boldness and intellectual daring in American letters.

Over the last decade William Giraldi has established himself as a charismatic and uncompromising literary essayist, “a literature-besotted Midas of prose” (Cynthia Ozick). Now, American Audacity gathers a selection of his most powerful considerations of American writers and themes—a “gorgeous fury of language and sensibility” (Walter Kirn)—including an introduct...