Description: Brashear deals with tragedy, not as a dramatic literary genre, but as a basic way of experiencing the universe and of reacting to it. The writer of tragedy forces readers to confront much more than a tragic flaw in a single character; he forces them to confront the gorgon's head itself, the ultimate chaos of the universe.
Brief description: WILLIAM R. BRASHEAR, having received his J.D. from the University of Michigan and Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University, both in the 1950s, has for most of his life followed concurrently the two roads toward which these disciplines lead. He has been a member of the State Bar of Michigan for more than fifty years, all of which he has spent as Senior Partner or Of Counsel with the same Detroit area firm. During the same period he has published many essays on literature and philosophy, and a half dozen books, including The Gorgon's Head and The Desolation of Reality.
Review Quotes:
A paradigm of centrality and profundity.
--Sewanee Review