In Partial Disgrace

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The long-awaited magnum opus of one of the United States's "best, and best-neglected" authors, critics, and tastemakers, In Partial Disgrace chronicles the troubled history of a small Central European nation through the memoirs of its most flamboyant exile: a writer, triple-agent, and bon vivant whose childhood in the fairy-tale house of his dog-trainer father and pagan goddess mother are themselves "translated and edited" by a retired Allied spy. Splitting the difference between the philosophical fictions of Thomas Mann and the fever-dream playfulness of Nabokov, and featuring a cast of characters, breadth of insight, and degree of stylistic legerdemain to put most contemporary novels to shame, In Partial Disgrace may be the last great work to issue from the generation that changed American letters in the '60s and '70s.Review"What is 'In Partial Disgrace'? A gamboling anti-historical account, meta-spy tale, sprawling, digressive aphoristic text, Cold War fantasy-criticism novel about, among other things, the training of hunting dogs? 'A memoir without hindsight? A meditation on the inherent wildness of history? A novel for people who hate novels?' If you like these types of questions and you feel in any way partial to lush, fallen, misbehaving novels and novelists, you should definitely read this book." - The Rumpus"Newman, the editor who put TriQuarterly on the map in the 1960s, was once spoken of in the same breath with the great dark humorists of postwar American writing. Even before his death, in 2006, his novels were falling out of print and his reputation fading. If there is any justice in the republic of letters (which is a big if), the belated publication of his masterwork, a 600-page trilogy set in a fictional Mitteleuropean nation to rival span>Musil's Kakania, should put him permanently back on the map" -- Garth Risk Hallberg, The Millions"A writer of convulsively original and beautiful works." - Robert Boyers"One of our most exciting and unpredictable writers, with an amazing range of styles and worlds." - Joyce Carol Oates"A writer's writer. The beauty of his prose is the reason his books work." - John Gardner"Among the best, and best-neglected, American authors." - Joshua Cohen"A novelist of formidable abilities and excitement." - The Chicago TribuneFrom the Back Cover"How shall I intrigue you? Poke a blind finger at a page. That way I picked 7. Begin reading with 'Save a milk cow . . .' Take a breath at '. . . shackles being erased.' You will have to begin at the beginning now. My god, you are parachuting into the four paws of a dog. And into one of the most intriguingly original fictions ever." -- William H. Gass