William Gaddis's Novels

About William Gaddis

William Gaddis (1922–1998) was the founding figure of American postmodern fiction — a reclusive novelist who published four novels over four decades, each massive, demanding, and formally innovative. The Recognitions (1955) is his debut and his most celebrated work: a 956-page novel of Flemish art forgery, theological doubt, and American bohemian life, published to near-silence and recognized only gradually as a masterwork. JR (1975) won the National Book Award; A Frolic of His Own (1994) won a second. Gaddis influenced Pynchon, DeLillo, and a generation of American writers who placed formal ambition at the center of their work.