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The author of Carpenter's Gothic (and winner of a 1993 Lannan Award) takes a brash, entertaining swipe at the legal profession in his fourth novel. Oscar Crease is a quiet, middle-aged history professor whose father and grandfather were both high-ranking judges. The story begins as Oscar contemplates two lawsuits: one against the Japanese manufacturer of the car that ran over him; the other against a filmmaker Oscar claims stole his play, Once at Antietam , and turned it into a gory, lavish movie. Before long, the legal wranglings, strategic maneuvering and--of course--the whopping bills dominate Oscar's life and wreak havoc on his relationships. There is no description or third-person narrative. Like Carpenter's Gothic , which is rendered wholly in dialogue, this narrative is a cacophony of heard and found voices: Oscar's conversations with his myriad lawyers, his flighty girlfriend, his patient sister and her lawyer husband are all spliced with phone calls, readings from Oscar's play and various legal documents. Rather than slow the action down, these documents add to the grim melee. This is a wonderful novel, aswirl with the everyday inanity of life; it may also be the most scathing attack ever published on our society's litigious ways. (Jan.) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

When Oscar Crease, an obscure history teacher, discovers that a new Hollywood film borrows heavily from his own unpublished Civil War play, he immediately sues for plagiarism. Meanwhile, Crease's brother-in-law, a corporate attorney, is struggling with a trade name dispute brought by the Episcopal Church against the anagrammatic Pepsi-Cola Company, and Oscar's father, irascible federal judge ThomasCrease, is deep in a ``media circus'' trial involving a dog trapped in a piece of junk sculpture. Gaddis's fourth novel is written in the cacophonous style that he perfected in his National Book Award winner, JR ( LJ 9/15/75). Conversation, recorded verbatim, is full of jargon, non sequiturs, and misunderstanding. No effort is made to identify the speakers, and blaring televisions and offstage noise drown out the words. The end result is a mordant analysis of a society overrun with lawyers, presented in a format that mirrors the chaos of modern life. An essential purchase for all literature collections.-- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

William Gaddis was born in Manhattan, New York City in 1922. In Recognition of William Gaddis (1984) is a collection of essays supporting the view that Gaddis is the Herman Melville of the twentieth century. The comparison may prove justified, not only because of artistic similarities, but also because both writers suffered from years of neglect before achieving fame. Gaddis's novel The Recognitions (1955) baffled and angered most of its initial reviewers, but it has slowly, steadily attracted a growing number of appreciative readers willing to work through its more than 900 demanding pages. Its length and encyclopedic complexity caused some critics mistakenly to hail it as the American Ulysses, but Gaddis disclaimed much knowledge of James Joyce. His central figure, Wyatt, is a painter who finds his natural talent misdirected away from original creation toward the forging of old masterpieces. Scores of other characters appear, and almost all of them are also forgers, imposters, counterfeiters, and plagiarists, for The Recognitions is essentially a deeply religious work about the nature of reality and creativity.

As if to make amends for the neglect of The Recognitions, most reviewers greeted Gaddis's second novel, JR (1975), with respectful attention. Although not a popular success, it won the National Book Award. Of Carpenter's Gothic (1985). William Gaddis died in 1998. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.