Mr. Difficult: William Gaddis and the Problem of Hard-to-Read Books

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The following essay by Jonathan Franzen appeared in The New Yorker. The following text has been transcribed from the 30 September 2002 issue. Mr. Difficult: William Gaddis and the Problem of Hard-to-Read Books Jonathan Franzen For a while last winter, after my third novel came out, I was getting a lot of angry mail from strangers. What upset them was not the novel — a comedy about a family in crisis — but some impolitic remarks I'd made in the press, and I knew that it was a mistake to send…

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