William Gaddis

A National Book Award-winning satire about the unchecked power of American capitalism, written more than three decades before the 2008 financial crisis.
At the center of J R is J R Vansant, a very average sixth grader from Long Island with torn sneakers, a runny nose, and a juvenile fascination with junk-mail get-rich-quick offers. Responding to one, he sees a small return; soon, he is running a paper empire out of a phone...

William Gaddis published only four novels during his lifetime, but with those works he earned himself a reputation as one of America's greatest novelists, the heir to Joyce and Nabokov. Less well known is Gaddis's body of perceptive critical writings. Presented here is a wide range of Gaddis's original essays. From "'Stop Player. Joke No. 4,'" Gaddis's first national publication and the basis for his projected history of the player piano-which would...

"Wyatt Gwyon forges not from larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals"- pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and the fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch- cannot even recognize. First published in 1955, this lively, witty, and labyrinthine...

A satirically jaundiced view of modern law and justice chronicles the fortunes of Oscar Crease, a middle-aged college instructor and playwright, as he sues a Hollywood producer for pirating a play.