Reader's Block (Paperback)

From the Publisher:
David Markson, critically acclaimed author of "Wittgenstein's Mistress" (Dalkey, 1988), electrifies his latest novel with unbearable emotional force. An aging author identified only as "Reader" contemplates writing a novel about a writer, called simply "Protagonist," who has left the city and taken a small house adjoining a cemetery. As Reader pursues possibilities for the novel, other matters insistently crowd his consciousness- hundreds of quotations (many unacknowledged) from literary history, cultural gossip: fascinating melange--a lifetime's reading that is evidently almost all he has to show for his decades on earth. Innumerable details about the calamity and despair in most artists' and writers' lives, countless references to those who have committed suicide, the eternal insults of incompetent critics or even fellow artists, the appalling number of bigots in their midst, and details from Reader's own life--out of these materials David Markson has created a novel of remarkable intellectual range. Shoring up Reader's ruins with such fragments, Markson shows that while his fictitious Reader may be blocked in writing his novel, he himself--spellbindingly, stunningly--is not. Markson has hit the magical combination of experimental form and engrossing subject matter to create a novel that will appeal to every kind of intelligent reader.In this spellbinding, utterly unconventional fiction, an aging author who is identified only as Reader contemplates the writing of a novel. As he does, other matters insistently crowd his mind - literary and cultural anecdotes, endless quotations attributed and not, scholarly curiosities - the residue of a lifetime's reading which is apparently all he has to show for his decades on earth. Out of these unlikely yet incontestably fascinating materials - including innumerable details about the madness and calamity in many artists' and writers' lives, the eternal critical affronts, the startling bigotry, the countless suicides - David Markson has created a novel of extraordinary intellectual suggestiveness. But while shoring up Reader's ruins with such fragments, Markson has also managed to electrify his novel with an almost unbearable emotional impact. Where Reader ultimately leads us is shattering.The narrator, Reader, reflects on a lifetime of reading