Уильям Гэддис: Carpenter s Gothic

This story of raging comedy and despair centers on the tempestuous marriage of an heiress and a Vietnam veteran. From their «carpenter gothic» rented house, Paul sets himself up as a media consultant for Reverend Ude, an evangelist mounting a grand crusade that conveniently suits a mining combine bidding to take over an ore strike on the site of Ude s African mission. At the still center of the breakneck action-revealed in Gaddis s inimitable virtuoso dialoge-is Paul s wife, Liz, and over it all looms the shadowy figure of McCandless, a geologist from whom Paul and Liz rent their house. As Paul mishandles the situation, his wife takes the geologist to her bed and a fire and aborted assassination occur, Ude issues a call to arms as harrowing as any Jeremiad-and Armageddon comes rapidly closer. Displaying Gaddis s inimitable virtuoso dialogue, and his startling treatments of violence and sexuality, Carpenter s Gothic «shows again that Gaddis is among the first rank of contemporary American writers» (Malcolm Bradbury, «The Washington Post Book World»).

«An unholy landmark of a novel-an extra turret added on to the ample, ingenious, audacious Gothic mansion Gaddis has been building in American letters» — Cynthia Ozick, «The New York Times Book Review»

«Everything in this compelling and brilliant vision of America-the packaged sleaze, the incipient violence, the fundamentalist furor, the constricted sexuality-is charged with the force of a volcanic eruption. «Carpenter s Gothic» will reenergize and give shape to contemporary literature.» — Walter Abish