In this paean to the pleasures of language, Gass equates his text with the body of Babs Masters, the lonesome wife of the title, to advance the conceit that a parallel should exist between a woman and her lover and a book and its reader. Disappointed by her inattentive husband/reader, Babs engages in an exuberant display of the physical charms of language to entice an illicit new lover: a man named Gelvin in one sense, but more importantly, the reader of this “essay-novella” which, in the years since its first appearance in 1968 as a supplement to TriQuarterly, has attained the status of a postmodernist classic. Like Laurence Sterne and Lewis Carroll before him, Gass uses a variety of visual devices: photographs, comic-strip balloons, different typefaces, parallel story lines (sometimes three or four to the page), even coffee stains. As Larry McCaffery has pointed out, “the lonesome lady of the book’s title, who is gradually revealed to be lady language herself, creates an elaborate series of devices which she hopes will draw attention to her slighted charms [and] force the reader to confront what she literally is: a physically exciting literary text.”

Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife

Literature & Fiction

Gass PhD, MR William H

Contemporary

Dalkey Archive Press

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.

Tests of Time (American Literature Series)

United States

<p>Reprint of the 1st ed. Published in 1971.</p>

World Within the Word (American Literature)

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Books by Gass PhD, MR William H

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gass PhD, MR William H. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife

Tests of Time (American Literature Series)

World Within the Word (American Literature)