William T. Vollmann is the author of ten novels, including Europe Central, which won the National Book Award. He has also written four collections of stories, including The Atlas, which won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction, a memoir, and six works of nonfiction, including Rising Up and Rising Down and Imperial, both of which were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His journalism and fiction have been published in The New Yorker, Harpers, Esquire, Granta, and many other publications.
Praise for The Dying Grass
“A novel of incredible significance and power. . .the reading
experience of a lifetime. . .what Vollmann has done is nothing
short of miraculous: He has taken a story whose ending is well
known, yet he has made us wonder how it will end. . .A masterpiece
that delivers us to the far shore of our past, a past that is still
at war with the ghosts of its decisions. The Dying Grass is
brilliant and alive.”—David Treuer, The Washington Post
“A novel as involving and beautifully assembled as any this year. .
.the writing has a pleasing aural quality that keeps the pages
turning almost on their own…[the story] whistles ahead with the
grace and speed of an arrow.”—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street
Journal
“Vollmann is one of the most idiosyncratic and challenging
novelists at work today. The Dying Grass, like his other works,
daringly pushes at the edges of the novel as a form while at the
same time demanding that the reader sit up and pay attention.”
—Jane Smiley, The New York Times Book Review
“Nothing less than brilliant…in Vollmann’s inventive telling these
events are rendered with an unstinting detail and vigorous
immediacy that feels startling and new. Swept along in streams of
dialogue interspersed with vivid descriptive passages that call to
mind the invention of Melville and the poetry of Whitman, the
reader bears witness to the chaotic melee of pitched battle…the
most remarkable thing about this novel is not how long it is, but
how good it is.” – The Seattle Times
“An uncompromising artistic achievement, a critical and heartfelt
retelling of America's evolution.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
“[Vollmann’s] artistic efforts and stamina are
unparalleled…As in all his work, Vollmann manifests striking
images…moments of grim humor…and poignancy.” – The Portland
Oregonian
“Stunning. . .The indefatigable, seeming inexhaustible Vollmann
returns with another impossibly long – and peerless – book, this
one an epic study of the Nez Perce War of 1877. . .Vollmann
restores that history with an onrushing immediacy that takes on all
the contours of a good Greek tragedy. . .Vollmann’s vivid
reconstruction is believable and achingly beautiful. . .a
note-perfect incantation.”— Kirkus Reviews
“A colossal, ravishingly descriptive, adeptly omniscient
novel…Vollmann’s rampaging, reflective, absurd, ironic, tragic, and
poetic epic is supported by a painstakingly compiled chronology,
glossaries, and copious notes. Yet for all this documentation, this
is a work of grand invention, creative empathy, and holistic
interpretation.. . This virtuoso, polyphonic saga of invasion,
resistance, forced exodus, and conquest flows, whirls, and
mesmerizes with riverine dynamics, and it is as large,
encompassing, and deeply felt as it needs to be to do justice to
its momentous subject.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Offers a panoramic view of the era and the decades leading up to
it…Vollmann’s prose is evocative and often lyrical, trailing down
the page like free verse. . .To his credit, Vollmann is as
interested in context and history as in storytelling…This massive
novel is sometimes challenging, but ultimately rewarding.”
—Publishers Weekly (boxed review)
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