Omensetter's Luck (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) - Softcover

Gass, William H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141180102 ISBN 13: 9780141180106

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1997

Synopsis

"The most important work of fiction by an American in this literary generation." -The New Republic

Now celebrating the 50th anniversary of its publication, Omensetter's Luck is the masterful first novel by the author of The Tunnel, Middle C, On Being Blue, and Eyes: Novellas and Stories.

Greeted as a masterpiece when it was first published in 1966, Omensetter's Luck is the quirky, impressionistic, and breathtakingly original story of an ordinary community galvanized by the presence of an extraordinary man. Set in a small Ohio town in the 1890s, it chronicles - through the voices of various participants and observers - the confrontation between Brackett Omensetter, a man of preternatural goodness, and the Reverend Jethro Furber, a preacher crazed with a propensity for violent thoughts. Omensetter's Luck meticulously brings to life a specific time and place as it illuminates timeless questions about life, love, good, and evil. This edition includes an afterword written by William Gass in 1997.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

About the Author

William H. Gass (1924-2017)—essayist, novelist, literary critic—was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He was the author of six works of fiction and nine books of essays, including Life Sentences, A Temple of Texts, and Tests of Time. Gass was a former professor of philosophy at Washington University. He lived with his wife, the architect Mary Gass, in St. Louis.

From the Back Cover

Greeted as a masterpiece when it was first published in 1966, Omensetter's Luck is the quirky, impressionistic, and breathtakingly original story of an ordinary community galvanized by the presence of an extraordinary man. Set in a small Ohio town in the 1890s, it chronicles - through the voices of various participants and observers - the confrontation between Brackett Omensetter, a man of preternatural goodness, and the Reverend Jethro Furber, a preacher crazed with a propensity for violent thoughts. Omensetter's Luck meticulously brings to life a specific time and place as it illuminates timeless questions about life, love, good, and evil.

Reviews

This Sound and Fury-esque novel relates the action from several characters' points of view as it follows the ramblings of the title character and his family through Ohio.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141180102
• ISBN 13: 9780141180106
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336