The Rush for Second Place

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 ultimately inspire Gaddis's final novel, Agape Agape—to the title essay about missed opportunities in America during the past fifty years, to "Old Foes with New Faces," an examination of the relationship between the writer and the problem of religion, this diverse collection displays the power of an autonomous literary intelligence in an age increasingly dominated by political and religious conservatism.