Description: Vollmann is a relentlessly curious, endlessly sensitive, and unequivocally adventurous examiner of human existence. In his work, he offers readers a gorgeously written immersion in the trainhopping, hobo life. 66 b&w photos.
Brief description:
William T. Vollmann is the author of seven novels, three collections of stories, and a seven-volume critique of violence, Rising Up and Rising Down. He is also the author of Poor People, a worldwide examination of poverty through the eyes of the impoverished themselves; Riding Toward Everywhere, an examination of the train-hopping hobo lifestyle; and Imperial, a panoramic look at one of the poorest areas in America. He has won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction, a Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize and a Whiting Writers' Award. His journalism and fiction have been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, Spin and Granta. Vollmann lives in Sacramento, California.
Review Quotes:
"A writer whose books tower over the work of his contemporaries." - Washington Post Book World
"A monster; monster talent, ambition, and accomplishment." - Los Angeles Times
"Intrepid journalist and novelist William T. Vollman's colossal body of work stands unsurpassed for its range, moral imperative, and artistry." - Booklist
"Evoking Jack London, Hemingway, Kerouac, Thomas Wolfe and Walt Whitman . . . Vollmann, perhaps more than any other contemporary writer, embodies the questioning, pioneering American jazz-spirit . . . [he] is inspiring; he's contagious." - San Antonio Express-News
"An immense literary talent." - New York Times
"No matter where he has wandered, Vollmann has remained a consistently serious writer, seriously committed to saying something about our broken world." - Esquire