{"product_id":"carpenters-gothic-by-william-gaddis","title":"'Carpenter's Gothic' by William Gaddis","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"41\" data-end=\"653\"\u003eA novel that unfolds almost entirely inside a single decaying country house. \u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"41\" data-end=\"653\"\u003eIf \u003cem data-start=\"206\" data-end=\"210\"\u003eJR\u003c\/em\u003e is an orchestral performance and \u003cem data-start=\"244\" data-end=\"262\"\u003eThe Recognitions\u003c\/em\u003e a cathedral, this is chamber music played at impossible speed. Dialogue crashes into memory, television, politics, religion, finance and private grievance with almost no narrative guidance. Gaddis expects the reader to assemble meaning from interruption itself, revealing a society in which nobody truly listens because every voice is already occupied by another system speaking through it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"655\" data-end=\"1167\"\u003eThe house draws in the noise of late twentieth-century America. Corporate extraction, evangelical prophecy, Cold War paranoia, media spectacle and domestic violence all arrive through conversations, telephone calls and visitors who seem incapable of distinguishing personal conviction from borrowed rhetoric. Gaddis transforms the Gothic tradition into something unmistakably modern: the haunted house is not occupied by ghosts, but by information, ideology and capital.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1169\" data-end=\"1584\"\u003eAlthough often overshadowed by Gaddis' larger novels, many readers consider \u003cem data-start=\"1245\" data-end=\"1265\"\u003eCarpenter's Gothic\u003c\/em\u003e his most accessible entry point without sacrificing any of his formal ambition. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1611\" data-end=\"1642\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePenguin Books, 1986. Paperback. Very good condition. Light rubbing and edge wear with a small crease to the upper corner of the front cover. Binding remains tight and pages are clean throughout.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45842931122259,"sku":null,"price":16.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Yourparagraphtext-2026-07-20T091306.770.png?v=1784502810","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/carpenters-gothic-by-william-gaddis","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}