THE AMERICAN DREAM "INSIDE OUT"
GADDIS, William. JR. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1975.
8vo. Original publishers white wrappers and black spine, pp. [xiii], 725; toning throughout due to paper stock and mild spotting to topedge, otherwise very good.
Book plate of painter and sculptor Michael J.W. Green, to whom the book is signed and inscribed by the author: "For Michael Green/all evidences of everything/to flee and we hope/to follow/with every good wish/meanwhile,/William Gaddis/New York/January 1976". Loosely inserted are four photocopied articles concerning Gaddis, spanning 1975-1994, one of which is titled, "Letting lose mere anarchy".
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1976, JR tells the story of a schoolboy who secretly amasses a fortune in penny stocks. Gaddis claimed that the concept came from an idea of satirising the American dream, or turning it "inside out". It is told almost solely through dialogue, and with no chapter separations within its 725 pages. The setting is, for the most part, a desolate, nightmarish version of Massapequa, New York and features a ludicrously dysfunctional school board. Indeed Gaddis, who in real life spent many years in Massapequa and had much of his property seized by the school board there, said, half in jest, that he "wrote JR in revenge against Massapequa."
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