William T. Vollmann (b. 1959) is a prolific and genre-defying writer. He is the author of some of American literature’s most passionate multivolume projects, Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes (6 vols. to date, 1990–), which reimagines the colonial history of the continent, and Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means (7 vols., 2003), which attempts to build a moral calculus for when violence may be justified. He is the winner of National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for his World War II novel Europe Central (2005), and a Dostoevskian chronicler of suffering and guilt.
While critics have been slow to catch up with Vollmann’s brick-like books appearing in quick succession over the past three decades, Vollmann has always had a cult following. Daniel Lukes is one of a handful of Vollmann scholars and has contributed immensely to the belated appreciation...
