William H. Gass-essayist, novelist, literary critic-was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He is the author of seven works of fiction and nine books of essays, including Life Sentences, A Temple of Texts, and Tests of Time, and was a professor of philosophy at Washington University. He died in 2017.

In this sequel to Fiction & the Figures of Life, one of America's most brilliant and eclectic minds examines literature, culture, writers (their lives and works), and the nature and uses of language and the written word. Included are discussions of Valéry, Henry Miller, Sartre, Freud, Faulkner, suicide, "art and order," and the transformation of language into poetry and fiction. The vividness and clarity of Gass's writing, the unabashed love and inimitable use of language-his startling metaphors, the sinuousness of his philosophy, the originality of his vision-make each essay a searching revelation of its subject, as well as an example of Gass's own singular artistry.