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JR Memo

 Collection — Box: VMF 20, Folder: 9
Identifier: MS-VMF-vmf242

Interoffice memorandum by Jennings Lang concerning a possible film adaptation by MCA of JR by William Gaddis, October 13, 1975. 4 pages

Dates

  • Creation: 1975 October 13

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Open

Conditions Governing Use

Users of the collection must read and agree to abide by the rules and procedures set forth in the Materials Use Policies.

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Extent

1.00 items

1 folders

Biographical Information

William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist. Born in New York City, Gaddis’ parents separated with he was three and he was subsequently raised in Massapequa (Long Island) by his mother. At age five, Gaddis was sent to Merricourt Boarding School in Berlin, Connecticut. He continued in private school until the eighth grade, after which he returned to Long Island to receive his diploma at Farmingdale High School in 1941. He entered Harvard in 1941 and famously wrote for the Harvard Lampoon (where he eventually served as President). After leaving Harvard without a degree in 1945, Gaddis worked as a fact checker for The New Yorker, then spent five years traveling in Mexico, Central America, Spain, France, England, and North Africa, returning to the United States in 1951.

Gaddis’ first novel, The Recognitions, appeared in 1955. A lengthy, complex, and allusive work, it had to wait to find its audience. Newspaper reviewers considered it overly intellectual, overwritten. Gaddis then turned to public relations work and the making of documentary films to support himself and his family. In this role he worked for Pfizer, Eastman Kodak, IBM, and the United States Army, among others. He also received a National Institute of Arts and Letters grant, a Rockefeller grant, and two National Endowment for the Arts grants, all of which helped him write his second novel. In 1975, he published J R, a work even more difficult than The Recognitions, told almost entirely in dialogue, where it is sometimes difficult to determine which character is speaking. Critical opinion had caught up with him, and the book won the National Book Award for Fiction. Gaddis' third novel Carpenter's Gothic (1985) would be nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award, while his fourth novel, A Frolic of His Own (1994), would earn him a second National Book Award in 1995.

Gaddis died of prostate cancer, but not before creating his final work, Agapē Agape, which was published in 2002. The Rush for Second Place, published at the same time, collected most of Gaddis's previously published nonfiction.

Source of Acquisition

Accession number 2015.008. Gift of Richard Chapman, May 13, 2015

Related Materials

See also the William Gaddis Papers

Title
JR Memo
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
eng

Revision Statements

  • 2021 March 19: Resource record updated in ArchiveSpace by Sarah Schnuriger.

Collecting Area Details

Part of the Manuscripts Collecting Area

Contact:
Joel Minor
Olin Library, 1 Brookings Drive
MSC 1061-141-B
St. Louis MO 63130 US
(314) 935-5495