With the publication of the "Recognitions" in 1955, William Gaddis was hailed as
the American heir to James Joyce. His two subsequent novels, "J R" (winner of t
he National Book Award) and "Carpenter's Gothic," have secured his position amon
g America's foremost contemporary writers. Now "A Frolic of His Own," his long-a
nticipated fourth novel, adds more luster to his reputation, as he takes on life
in our litigious times. "Justice? - You get justice in the next world, in this
world you have the law." So begins this mercilessly funny, devastatingly accurat
e tale of lives caught up in the toils of the law. Oscar Crease, middle-aged col
lege instructor, savant, and playwright, is suing a Hollywood producer for pirat
ing his play Once at Antietam, based on his grandfather's experiences in the Civ
il War, and turning it into a gory blockbuster called The Blood in the Red White
and Blue. Oscar's suit, and a host of others - which involve a dog trapped in a
n outdoor sculpture, wrongful death during a river baptism, a church versus a so
ft drink company, and even Oscar himself after he is run over by his own car - e
ngulf all who surround him, from his freewheeling girlfriend to his well-to-do s
tepsister and her ill-fated husband (a partner in the white-shoe firm of Swyne &
Dour), to his draconian, nonagenarian father, Federal Judge Thomas Crease, who
has just wielded the long arm of the law to expel God (and Satan) from his court
room. And down the tortuous path of depositions and decrees, suits and countersu
its, the most lofty ideas of our culture - questions about the value of art, lit
erature, and originality - will be wrung dry in the meticulous, often surreal lo
gic and language of the law,leaving no party unscathed. Gaddis has created a whi
rlwind of a novel, which brilliantly reproduces the Tower of Babel in which we c
onduct our lives. In "A Frolic of His Own" we hear voices as they speak at and a
round one another: lawyers, family members, judges, rogues, hucksters.
