In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William H Gass

In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William H Gass

First published in 1968, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country established William Gass as one of America's finest and boldest writers of fiction, and nearly fifty years later, the book still stands as a landmark of contemporary fiction. The two novellas and three short stories it contains are all set in the Midwest, and together they offer a mythical reimagining of America's heartland, with its punishing extremes of heat and cold, its endless spaces and claustrophobic households, its hidden and baffled desires, its lurking threat of violence. Exploring and expanding the limits of the short story, Gass works magic with words, words that are as squirming, regal, and unexpected as the roaches, boys, icicles, neighbors, and neuroses that fill these pages, words that shock, dazzle, illumine, and delight.

Gass was born in Fargo, North Dakota, and is an essayist, novelist, and literary critic. Life Sentences, A Temple of Texts, and Tests of Time are among his six works of fiction and nine collections of essays. Gass is a former philosophy professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He resides in St. Louis with his architect wife, Mary Gass.