Dear readers, Please don’t miss this excellent review of “A Table for Fortune,” William T. Vollmann’s monumental novel of the American war complex over the past half-century. At 3,000 pages, the complete story comprises a four-box set. The narrative follows a brilliant C.I.A. analyst called Dave, and is nominally about Sept. 11. But it’s just as much about the agency’s politicization and what Dave and a colleague see as its “string of failures and unforeseen errors.” Later, the focus shifts to Dave’s son, Matthew, who estranges himself from his family and travels across the United States, occasionally homeless. (In a preface Vollmann notes that Matthew’s self-destructive streak echoes that of his own late daughter, Lisa, which adds a poignant, human bent to a cerebral novel loaded with archival documents.) In his review, the critic Tom LeClair says the work “exemplifies a genre of books I call ‘monsterpieces,’ culture-mastering excessive novels that deform conventional narrative into ingenious and instructive monstrosities.” (LeClair, a Book Review contributor since 1975, writes a Substack about this very “genre,” and it’s worth a look.) I haven’t read “A Table for Fortune.” But I admire the effort Vollmann poured into it, the marshaling of historical fact and narrative bricklaying. Would any other living American writer be capable of such a feat? See you next time. Like this email? We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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