{"product_id":"american-audacity-william-giraldi-9781631493904","title":"American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring","description":"\u003cp\u003eOver the last decade William Giraldi has established himself as a charismatic and uncompromising literary essayist, \"a literature-besotted Midas of prose\" (Cynthia Ozick). Now, \u003cem\u003eAmerican Audacity\u003c\/em\u003e gathers a selection of his most powerful considerations of American writers and themes--a \"gorgeous fury of language and sensibility\" (Walter Kirn)--including an introductory call to arms for twenty-first-century American literature, and a new appreciation of James Baldwin's genius for nonfiction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith potent insights into the storied tradition of American letters, and written with a \"commitment to the dynamism and dimensions of language,\" \u003cem\u003eAmerican Audacity\u003c\/em\u003e considers giants from the past (Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Harper Lee, Denis Johnson), some of our most well-known living critics and novelists (Harold Bloom, Stanley Fish, Katie Roiphe, Cormac McCarthy, Allan Gurganus, Elizabeth Spencer), as well as those cultural-literary themes that have concerned Giraldi as an American novelist (bestsellers, the \"problem\" of Catholic fiction, the art of hate mail, and his viral essay on bibliophilia).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDemanding that literature be audacious, and urgent in its convictions, \u003cem\u003eAmerican Audacity\u003c\/em\u003e is itself an act of intellectual daring, a compendium shot through with Giraldi's \"emboldened and emboldening critical voice\" (Sven Birkerts). At a time when literature is threatened by ceaseless electronic bombardment, Giraldi argues that literature \"must do what literature has always done: facilitate those silent spaces, remain steadfastly itself in its employment of slowness, interiority, grace, and in its marshaling of aesthetic sophistication and complexity.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eAmerican Audacity\u003c\/em\u003e is ultimately an assertion of intelligence and discernment from a maker of \"perfectly paced prose\" (\u003cem\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/em\u003e), a book that reaffirms the pleasure and wisdom of the deepest literary values.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e William Giraldi\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1631493906\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781631493904\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Liveright Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/21\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.50lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.20h x 5.60w x 1.70d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/23\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/01\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/01\/2018 pg. 96\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/31\/2018","brand":"William Giraldi","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43939443867903,"sku":"9781631493904","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_78b4c41d-fcab-47c3-82c6-e2b3138e17c4.jpg?v=1681441525","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/american-audacity-william-giraldi-9781631493904","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}