This one is pretty special. Gass that appears in the tribute that we published in NDQ Do check out Prof. What follows is an interview that took place at William H.
Slight edits have been made to the transcript, usually involving the removal of false starts. However, some content has been omitted for length. Ellipses in brackets note omissions; all other ellipses represent pauses. Occasionally, Alberts inserts a note in brackets to correct dates or clarify other information. William H Gass : Well. I had really no desire to meet him. I was put off , I think, by the fans: he had this cult, which is not his doing of course, [. And then, by chance, I was a member of the jury for the National Book Awards [.
We were to meet in New York and decide what five books we wanted to nominate as possibilities for the National Book. J R was up that year, it turned out, and I had read it with astonishment, but astonishment not because it was good— I expected that— but because it was so different from The Recognitions.
Well, it won. And Mary McCarthy simply brushed off any possibility of anybody else winning, which was good of her. So, then, I met Gaddis at the banquet in New York when the prize was awarded. And, we shook hands and were introduced [. And then, it was quite a few years before I met him again. Alberts : What brought you two together again?
Well then, oh, [. I went to Sarasota at the invitation of Joy Williams and some other people, Rust Hills, for a conference of some sort there. And Gaddis was there. We had long talks and so forth. But, we really got together while he was there. Gass : Yeah. And he was down in the dumps and sort of distraught, and I remember having long conversations.
