in the heart of the heart of the country
in the heart of the heart of the countrywilliam gass
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in the heart of the heart of the country (1977)

william gass

Others: Positive

IN THIS SUITE of five short pieces -- one of the unqualified literary masterpieces of the American 1960s -- William Gass finds five beautiful forms in which to explore the signature theme of his fiction: the solitary soul’s poignant, conflicted, and doomed pursuit of love and community. In their obsessions, Gass’s Midwestern dreamers are like the "grotesques" of Sherwood Anderson, but in their hyper-linguistic streams of consciousness, they are the match for Joyce’s Dubliners. First published in 1968, this book begins with a beguiling thirty-three page essay and has five fictions: the celebrated novella "The Pedersen Kid," "Mrs. Mean," "Icicles," "Order of Insects," and the title story.

ISBN:
9781111091095
Length:
226 pages

Genres: literary fiction, classics

Lists: …

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Reviews1

Better Than Food
Loved it

number four in the heart of the heart of the country by Will gas this book was sent to me for free by the publisher nyrb for review this is a collection of cold dark literary stories from the midwestern postmodernist author William gas an extremely aidite author with a writing style that seems to have been laboriously carved in the same manner that Landscapes are smoothed by water over thousands of years his combination of eerie unsettling narratives combined with his stunningly crafted Pros was a real highlight of the year