Just as the world appears to be losing its appetite for books, William T. Vollmann pens a 3,000-page novel
Novelist William T. Vollmann, 67, is publishing a four-volume, 3,000-page novel titled ‘A Table for Fortune,’ tackling the causes and aftermath of 9/11 through the stories of a CIA analyst and his son. The book arrives after a difficult stretch for Vollmann, who lost his daughter, was dropped by his longtime publisher Viking, and has been managing an incurable colon cancer diagnosis, all while publishing continues to shrink and reading rates decline.
The essay situates the novel within Vollmann's decades-long habit of writing very long, dense books on subjects like global poverty and the history of violence, some running past 3,000 pages themselves. The author argues that the novel's scale and complexity are suited to untangling the ‘post-truth’ confusions of the current moment, even as publishers and educators increasingly bet against readers' patience for exactly that kind of book.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.