For many years the novelist William Gaddis, despite having won two National Book Critics Circle Awards and a MacArthur Foundation's 'genius award', suffered from commercial and critical neglect. However, Gaddis has more recently experienced a resurgence in his popularity among both groups and is now considered one of the strongest American novelists. This collection of essays explores the interrelation between Gaddis' writing and the culture that helped to engender it. The essays cover such topics as technique, genre, religion, art, economics, colonialism and the role played by Gaddis' own travels through Europe and North Africa.