Eyes: Novellas and Stories

Enter the sublime, upside-down / inside-out world of William H. Gass . . . in this case where the  Eyes  have it every which way, including up . . . in a dazzling new collection of novellas and stories (six in all) from one of the most revered writers of our time, author of sixteen books, among them, the universally acclaimed The Tunnel ("An extraordinary achievement"--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post); Middle C("Exhilaratingly ingenious"--Cynthia Ozick, The New York Times Book Review cover); and Life Sentences ("A literary miracle"--The New York Observer).

This enchanting, Gassian journey begins with "In Camera," an investigation into what is likely to develop when a possibly illicit collection of photographs becomes the object of a greedy salesman's loving eyes . . . In "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. "Don't Even Try, Sam" tells of the battered, old piano Dooley Wilson plays in Casablanca as it complains in an interview of its treatment during the making of the picture. "Soliloquy for a Chair" is just that, a rumination by a folding chair in a barber shop that is ultimately bombed . . . and in "The Toy Chest," Disneylike creatures take on human roles and worries and live in an atmosphere of a child's imagination.

A glorious fantasia; each, quintessentially Gass; each, a virtuoso delight.


From the Hardcover edition.