Fire the Bastards!

by Jack Green, Steven Moore (Introduction)

Overview

"Fire the Bastards! "is a scorching attack on the book-review media using the critical reception of William Gaddis's 1955 novel "The Recognitions "as a case study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781564786098
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	11/01/1992
Series:	American Literature
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jack Green attended Princeton and worked for an insurance company before supporting himself fulltime as a freelance proofreader. Seventeen issues of his newspaper appeared between 1957 and 1965, and since then he has published various chapbooks. He lives in New York s Greenwich Village.

Steven Moore earned his Ph.D. at Rutgers University. He is a noted William Gaddis scholar and wrote "William Gaddis", the first comprehensive critical guide to his work, and "A Reader's Guide to William Gaddis's The Recognitions". Moore has edited a number of books, including "Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski & Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967" and "In Recognition of William Gaddis". He has also contributed essays, articles, and reviews to a number of newspapers, journals, and magazines.

Editorial Reviews

William Gaddis's Recognitions (1955), now generally recognized as a landmark of modern fiction, was initially panned by reviewers, who criticized its length, complexity, and innovative style. Fire the Bastards! originally appeared during 1962 in three issues of newspaper , Green's underground magazine, to refute these negative reviews and to launch an assault on book reviewers and the publishing establishment. Green scrutinizes these reviews and delivers a tirade (printed without capitalization or punctuation) on mediocre standards, plagiarism, the use of shopworn cliches, and the superficial reading and analysis employed by allegedly overpaid reviewers who wouldn't recognize genius if they fell over it. An introduction by Steven Moore provides fascinating background information on Green, Gaddis, and the ``disturbing questions about the book-review media that are as pertinent today as they were thirty years ago.'' Recommended for college/research collections and thick-skinned reviewers.-- Jacqueline Adams, Carroll Cty. P.L., Westminster, Md.

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