The Cry of the Sloth

The four—month odyssey of a literary lowlife.

Set in middle America during the economic hard times of the Nixon era, this tragicomic, epistolary masterpiece chronicles everything Andrew Whittaker—literary journal editor, negligent landlord, and aspiring novelist—commits to paper over the course of four critical months.

From his letters, diary entries, and fragments of fiction, to grocery lists and posted signs, we find our hero hounded by tenants and creditors, harassed by a loathsome local a...