SOURCE: "Literary Trials and Tribulations," in The New Leader, Vol. LXXVII, No. 1, January 17-31, 1994, pp. 18-19.

[Kamine is a short story writer and film consultant. In the review below, he offers praise for A Frolic of His Own.]

William Gaddis stands alone. No other American novelist takes on the modernist challenge with comparable rigor or success. Few bother at all, beyond an easy self-reflexivity or the occasional insertion of Joycean interior monologue; most are content to explore 19th-century developments. The result is a conservative literary climate (albeit liberal politically) in which plot presides and innovation is adjunct to subject matter, not style. I don't mean to denigrate the importance of literature that breaches social barriers. I do, however, like to be reminded now and then of what drew me to literature in the first place. Gaddis, about once every 10 years (four novels since 1955), does this.

His latest work...