William H. Gass

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William H. Gass (born July 30, 1924) is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic and former philosophy professor.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Writing and publications 3 Awards and honors 4 Fiction 5 Non-Fiction 6 External links

[edit] Early life

Gass was born in Fargo, North Dakota. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Warren, Ohio, where he attended local schools. He has described his childhood as an unhappy one, with an abusive, racist father and a passive, alcoholic mother; critics would later cite his characters as having these same qualities.

He attended Wesleyan University, then served as an Ensign in the Navy during World War II, a period he describes as perhaps the worst of his life. He earned his A.B. in philosophy from Kenyon College in 1947, then his Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell University in 1954, where he studied under Max Black. His dissertation, "A Philosophical Investigation of Metaphor," was based on his training as a philosopher of language. In graduate school Gass read the work of Gertrude Stein, who influenced his writing experiments.

Gass taught at The College of Wooster and Purdue University. For the past 30 years he has been the David May Distinguished Professor in Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. His colleagues included writer, Stanley Elkin, Howard Nemerov, (1988 Poet Laureate of the United States), Mona Van Duyn, (1992 Poet Laureate of the United States)

[edit] Writing and publications

Earning a living for himself and his family from university teaching, Gass began to publish stories that were selected for inclusion in The Best American Stories of 1959, 1961, and 1962, 1968 and 1980 as well as Two Hundred Years of Great American Short Stories. In 1966 his first novel, Omensetter's Luck, about life in a small town in Ohio in the 1890s, appeared. Critics praised his linguistic virtuosity, establishing him as an important writer of fiction. In 1968 he published In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, five stories dramatizing the theme of human isolation and the difficulty of love. Three years later Gass wrote Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife, an experimental novella illustrated with photographs and typographical constructs intended to help readers free themselves from the linear conventions of narrative. He has also published several collections of essays, including On Being Blue (1976) and Finding a Form (1996). His latest work of fiction, Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas, was published in 1998. His work has also appeared in The Best American Essays collections of 1986, 1992 and 2000.

Gass has cited the anger he felt during his childhood as a major influence on his work, even stating that he writes "to get even." Despite his prolific output, he has said that writing is difficult for him. In fact, his epic novel The Tunnel, published in 1995, took Gass over 30 years to compose. An unabridged audio version of The Tunnel was released in 2006, with Gass reading the novel himself.

When writing, Gass typically devotes enormous attention to the construction of sentences, arguing their importance as the basis of his work. His prose has been described as flashy, difficult, edgy, masterful, inventive and musical. Steven Moore, writing in the Washington Post has called Gass "the finest prose stylist in America." Much of Gass' work is metafictional.

[edit] Awards and honors

Gass has received many awards and honors, including grants from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1965, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1970. He won the Pushcart Prize awards in 1976, 1983, 1987, and 1992, and in 1994 he received the Mark Twain Award for Distiguished Contribution to the Literature of the Midwest. He has teaching awards from Purdue University and Washington University;in 1968 the Chicago Tribune Award as One of the Ten Best Teachers in the Big Ten. He was a Getty Foundation Fellow in 1991-1992. He received the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997; and the American Book Award for The Tunnel in 1997.Gass has received the National Book Critics Circle Award twice.

Professor Gass founded the International Writers Center at Washington University in 1990, whose purpose was to “build on the strengths of its resident and visiting faculty writers; to serve as a focal point for writing excellence in all disciplines and in all cultures; to be a directory for writers and writing programs at Washington University, in St. Louis, in the United States, and around the world; and to present the writer to the reader.” While he retired from teaching full time in 1999, Gass remains professor emeritus at Washington University.

William H. Gass is married to architect Mary Henderson Gass, author of "Parkview: A St. Louis Urban Oasis" 2005. They have two daughters, artist Catherine Gass teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Gass has his own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Gass has also made numerous presentations of his photography.

[edit] Fiction

• Omensetter's Luck 1966
• In The Heart of the Heart of the Country 1968
• Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife 1968
• The Tunnel 1995
• Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas 1998

[edit] Non-Fiction

• Fiction and the Figures of Life 1970
• On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry 1976
• The World Within the Word 1978
• Habitations of the Word 1984
• Finding a Form 1996
• Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation 1999
• Tests of Time 2002
• A Temple of Texts 2006

[edit] External links

• A long review of The Tunnel
• Interview with Gass from Pif Magazine
• Interview with Gass from the ADFL
• 1985 audio interview by Don Swaim
• Interview from The Believer
• A review of the mp3 audiobook of The Tunnel
• The Paris Review interview
• 2004 reading and audiointerview at Lannan Foundation Audio Archive
• Interview with Gass from Gadfly magazine
• Dalkey Archive
• [1] Audio book review by Stephen Schenkenberg