William Gaddis, Carpenter's Gothic

Peter Dempsey (University of Sunderland)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1985

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

While Carpenter's Gothic (1985), picks up and develops themes from Gaddis's earlier fiction, this much shorter (262 pages) and relatively accessible novel proved the most commercially and critically successful work of the three he had thus far published. That said, it offers us a world without love, a world of religious chicanery and political cynicism. The novel describes the last few months in the life of Elizabeth Booth. Elizabeth and her husband Paul have rented a house from a mysterious ex-CIA man and writer, McCandless. Paul is working as a media consultant to a religious demagogue, the Reverend Ude and cynically attempts to turn the accidental drowning of a child into a miracle that can be trumpeted around the globe for …

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431 words

Citation: Dempsey, Peter. "Carpenter's Gothic". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 December 2002 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6119, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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