Eyes - Hardcover

Praise for William H. Gass
EYES

Powerful, passionate . . . Gass at his best and most mysterious . . . impressive . . . All of [the stories] are distinguished by Gass dry wit, verbal facility and rich prose style.
-Harper Barnes, "St Louis Post-Dispatch"
Quietly suspenseful, emotionally lustrous . . . The literary equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, seething, trenchant, hilarious . . . imaginative and incisive . . . Gass is a mind-bending original of phenomenal brilliance, artistry, wit, and insight.
-Donna Seaman, "Booklist" (Starred Review)
[Gass is] an exquisite maker of sentences, weighing his prose like a poet for rhythm, consonance, and intellectual heft . . . excellent . . . dry but artful . . . It says something about Gass' talent and flexibility that he can write an effective story that's narrated by a barber-shop folding chair. But this is Gass' universe, and here, even folding chairs don't get off easy. Glum fun.
-"Kirkus"
It is evident from these tales that [Gass ] creative fount is far from dry. The book opens with two novellas, each of which coaxes sublimity out of wry, misanthropic portraits . . . acerbic and nostalgic . . . Gass proves himself a master diviner, able to tap the deepest and most mysterious reservoirs.
-"Publishers Weekly""

Praise for William H. Gass
EYES
Enough formal inventiveness and lyrical sleights-of-hand to keep even the most seasoned Gass acolyte pleasantly off-balance . . . a wonderful entry point into the Gassian literary cosmos. In these strange, piercing stories we read of ourselves hungrily and with a growing awareness. We read for the inimitable prose style, and the brilliant narrative gambits but we also read to"see"what he sees . . . Life and literature shimmer and intensify. May we all learn to see with such eyes.
-Dustin Illingwirth, Electric Lit
Gass s penchant for creating witty grouches and solipsists capable of charm can be seen, at the paragraph level, as a rebellion against the sentimentality of mainstream fiction . . . Gass is not content merely to tweak the bourgeois modern reader. On a macro level, the author s obsession with crimes against humanity has a starker (and more judgmental) political cast . . . Taken together with"Middle C," the novellas in"Eyes"show that, for all of Gass s expertise with the tropes of his favored texts, he s still stumbling over some new accidents of beauty.
-Seth Colter Walls, "The Guardian"
Gass style defies characterization, and"Eyes"is no exception. . . full of originality and fantasy.
-"M&V Magazine"
Powerful, passionate . . . Gass at his best and most mysterious . . . impressive . . . All of [the stories] are distinguished by Gass dry wit, verbal facility and rich prose style.
-Harper Barnes, "St Louis Post-Dispatch"
Quietly suspenseful, emotionally lustrous . . . The literary equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, seething, trenchant, hilarious . . . imaginative and incisive . . .Gass is a mind-bending original of phenomenal brilliance, artistry, wit, and insight.
-Donna Seaman, "Booklist"(Starred Review)
[Gass is] an exquisite maker of sentences, weighing his prose like a poet for rhythm, consonance, and intellectual heft . . . excellent . . . dry but artful . . . It says something about Gass' talent and flexibility that he can write an effective story that's narrated by a barber-shop folding chair. But this is Gass' universe, and here, even folding chairs don't get off easy. Glum fun.
-"Kirkus"
It is evident from these tales that [Gass ] creative fount is far from dry. The book opens with two novellas, each of which coaxes sublimity out of wry, misanthropic portraits . . . acerbic and nostalgic . . . Gass proves himself a master diviner, able to tap the deepest and most mysterious reservoirs.
-"Publishers Weekly""

Excitement about William H. Gass s
EYES
Language of balletic precision . . . Readers already familiar with William H. Gass oeuvre will find all six tales in this volume sending them back to his earlier fiction, while newcomers to the work of this American master will hasten to discover more.
Claire Hopley, "Washington Times Book Review"
Enough formal inventiveness and lyrical sleights-of-hand to keep even the most seasoned Gass acolyte pleasantly off-balance . . . a wonderful entry point into the Gassian literary cosmos. In these strange, piercing stories we read of ourselves hungrily and with a growing awareness. We read for the inimitable prose style, and the brilliant narrative gambits but we also read to"see"what he sees . . . Life and literature shimmer and intensify. May we all learn to see with such eyes.
Dustin Illingwirth, Electric Lit
Gass s penchant for creating witty grouches and solipsists capable of charm can be seen, at the paragraph level, as a rebellion against the sentimentality of mainstream fiction . . . Gass is not content merely to tweak the bourgeois modern reader. On a macro level, the author s obsession with crimes against humanity has a starker (and more judgmental) political cast . . . Taken together with "Middle C," the novellas in "Eyes" show that, for all of Gass s expertise with the tropes of his favored texts, he s still stumbling over some new accidents of beauty.
Seth Colter Walls, "The Guardian"
Gass style defies characterization, and "Eyes" is no exception. . . full of originality and fantasy.
"M&V Magazine"
Powerful, passionate . . . Gass at his best and most mysterious . . . impressive . . . All of [the stories] are distinguished by Gass dry wit, verbal facility and rich prose style.
Harper Barnes, "St Louis Post-Dispatch"
Quietly suspenseful, emotionally lustrous . . . The literary equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, seething, trenchant, hilarious . . . imaginative and incisive . . . Gass is a mind-bending original of phenomenal brilliance, artistry, wit, and insight.
Donna Seaman, "Booklist" (Starred Review)
[Gass is] an exquisite maker of sentences, weighing his prose like a poet for rhythm, consonance, and intellectual heft . . . excellent . . . dry but artful . . . It says something about Gass' talent and flexibility that he can write an effective story that's narrated by a barber-shop folding chair. But this is Gass' universe, and here, even folding chairs don't get off easy. Glum fun.
"Kirkus"
It is evident from these tales that [Gass ] creative fount is far from dry. The book opens with two novellas, each of which coaxes sublimity out of wry, misanthropic portraits . . . acerbic and nostalgic . . . Gass proves himself a master diviner, able to tap the deepest and most mysterious reservoirs.
"Publishers Weekly"
"

Excitement about William H. Gass s
EYES
Language of balletic precision . . . Readers already familiar with William H. Gass oeuvre will find all six tales in this volume sending them back to his earlier fiction, while newcomers to the work of this American master will hasten to discover more.
Claire Hopley, Washington Times Book Review
Enough formal inventiveness and lyrical sleights-of-hand to keep even the most seasoned Gass acolyte pleasantly off-balance . . . a wonderful entry point into the Gassian literary cosmos. In these strange, piercing stories we read of ourselves hungrily and with a growing awareness. We read for the inimitable prose style, and the brilliant narrative gambits but we also read toseewhat he sees . . . Life and literature shimmer and intensify. May we all learn to see with such eyes.
Dustin Illingwirth, Electric Lit
Gass s penchant for creating witty grouches and solipsists capable of charm can be seen, at the paragraph level, as a rebellion against the sentimentality of mainstream fiction . . . Gass is not content merely to tweak the bourgeois modern reader. On a macro level, the author s obsession with crimes against humanity has a starker (and more judgmental) political cast . . . Taken together with Middle C, the novellas in Eyes show that, for all of Gass s expertise with the tropes of his favored texts, he s still stumbling over some new accidents of beauty.
Seth Colter Walls, The Guardian
Gass style defies characterization, and Eyes is no exception. . . full of originality and fantasy.
M&V Magazine
Powerful, passionate . . . Gass at his best and most mysterious . . . impressive . . . All of [the stories] are distinguished by Gass dry wit, verbal facility and rich prose style.
Harper Barnes, St Louis Post-Dispatch
Quietly suspenseful, emotionally lustrous . . . The literary equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, seething, trenchant, hilarious . . . imaginative and incisive . . . Gass is a mind-bending original of phenomenal brilliance, artistry, wit, and insight.
Donna Seaman, Booklist (Starred Review)
[Gass is] an exquisite maker of sentences, weighing his prose like a poet for rhythm, consonance, and intellectual heft . . . excellent . . . dry but artful . . . It says something about Gass' talent and flexibility that he can write an effective story that's narrated by a barber-shop folding chair. But this is Gass' universe, and here, even folding chairs don't get off easy. Glum fun.
Kirkus
It is evident from these tales that [Gass ] creative fount is far from dry. The book opens with two novellas, each of which coaxes sublimity out of wry, misanthropic portraits . . . acerbic and nostalgic . . . Gass proves himself a master diviner, able to tap the deepest and most mysterious reservoirs.
Publishers Weekly

Excitement about William H. Gass's
EYES

A dazzling new collection—two novellas and four short stories from one of the most revered writers of our time, author of seven books of fiction, among them The Tunnel (“An extraordinary achievement”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post); Middle C (“Exhilaratingly ingenious”—Cynthia Ozick, The New York Times Book Review, cover); and Cartesian Sonata (“The finest prose stylist in America”—The Washington Post).

It begins with "In Camera," the first of the two novellas, and tells the story, which grows darker and dustier by the speck, of a Mr. Gab (who doesn’t have the gift) and his photography shop (in a part of town so drab even robbers wouldn’t visit), a shop stuffed with gray-white, gray-bleach photographs, each in its own cellophane sheet, loosely side-filed in cardboard boxes, tag attached . . . an inner sanctum where little happens beyond the fulsome, deep reverence for Mr. Gab’s images and vast collection, a homemade museum in the midst of the outer maelstrom . . . until a Mr. Stu (as in u-stew-pid) enters the shop, inspecting the extraordinary collection, and Mr. Gab’s treasure-filled, dust-laden, meticulously contained universe begins to implode . . .

In the story “Don’t Even Try, Sam,” the upright piano from the 1942 Warner Bros. classic Casablanca is interviewed (“I know why you want to talk to me,” the piano says. “It’s because everybody else is dead. Stars go out. Directors die. Companies fold. But some of the props get preserved. I’ve seen my friend the Vichy water bottle in the storeroom as wrapped up as the Maltese Falcon. We’d fetch a price now”) . . .

In another story, “Charity,” a young lawyer, whose business it is to keep hospital equipment honestly produced, offers a simple gift and is brought to the ambiguous heart of charity itself. In “Soliloquy for a Chair,” a folding chair does just that—talks in a barbershop that is ultimately bombed . . . and in “The Toy Chest,” Disneylike creatures take on human roles and concerns and live in an atmosphere of a child’s imagination.

An enchanting Gassian journey; a glorious fantasia; a virtuoso delight.