Over the last decade William Giraldi has established himself as a charismatic and uncompromising literary essayist, āa literature-besotted Midas of proseā (Cynthia Ozick).Ā Now, American Audacity gathers a selection of his most powerful considerations of American writers and themesāa āgorgeous fury of language and sensibilityā (Walter Kirn)āincluding an introductory call to arms for twenty-first-century American literature, and a new appreciation of James Baldwinās genius for nonfiction.
With potent insights into the storied tradition of American letters, and written with a ācommitment to the dynamism and dimensions of language,ā American Audacity considers giants from the past (Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Harper Lee, Denis Johnson), some of our most well-known living critics and novelists (Harold Bloom, Stanley Fish, Katie Roiphe, Cormac McCarthy, Allan Gurganus, Elizabeth Spencer), as well as those cultural-literary themes that have concerned Giraldi as an American novelist (bestsellers, the āproblemā of Catholic fiction, the art of hate mail, and his viral essay on bibliophilia).
Demanding that literature be audacious, and urgent in its convictions, American Audacity is itself an act of intellectual daring, a compendium shot through with Giraldiās āemboldened and emboldening critical voiceā (Sven Birkerts). At a time when literature is threatened by ceaseless electronic bombardment, Giraldi argues that literature āmust do what literature has always done: facilitate those silent spaces, remain steadfastly itselfĀ in its employment of slowness, interiority, grace, and in its marshaling of aesthetic sophistication and complexity.ā
American Audacity is ultimately an assertion of intelligence and discernment from a maker of āperfectly paced proseā (The New Yorker), a book that reaffirms the pleasure and wisdom of the deepest literary values.
This book title, American Audacity (In Defense of Literary Daring), ISBN: 9781631493904, by William Giraldi, published by Liveright (August 21, 2018) is available in hardcover. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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