William Gass

Gertrude Stein’s monumental novel, back in print a century after its first publication. In The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein sets out to tell "a history of a family's progress," radically reworking the traditional family saga novel to encompass her vision of personality and psychological relationships. As the history progresses over three generations, Stein also meditates on her own writing, on the making of The Making of Americans, and on America itself.

The World Within the Word, Gass's second published volume of criticism, is a landmark collection discussing Val ry, Henry Miller, Sartre, Freud, Faulkner, suicide, "art and order," and the transformation of language into poetry and fiction. Revelatory and gorgeous, by turns humorous and devastating, it stands among Gass's best and most provocative books. First published by Knopf in 1978.

In Tests of Time (2003), Gass shares his thoughts about writing, reading, culture, history, politics, and public opinion, including essays on classic writers and contemporaries, literary "lists" and their use, the extent and cost of political influences on writers, and the First Amendment. First published by University of Chicago Press.