SOURCE: “William Gass and the Real World,” in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 11, No. 3, Fall, 1991, pp. 71-7.

In the following essay, Stevick examines the significance of Gass's comments on his own work in light of his problematic insistence on the nonreferentiality of his texts. Stevick draws attention to paradoxical distinctions between Gass's authorial persona and his actual existence as creator and critic of his own writing.

Not very many writers refuse to talk about their work these days. A writer has to be resolutely reclusive to do so, or perhaps supremely rude. People do ask. It is probably attractive for most writers to respond, partly because the questions in most interviews are thoughtful, incisive, and not self-promotive, partly because it is surely good for the ego, creating a secondary level of discourse in which one comments on one's own work, Narcissus as Narcissus, in Tate's classic phrase. Once...