Coffman Releases Groundbreaking Book on Acclaimed Author William T. Vollmann
CGS Humanities Lecturer Christopher Coffman’s new book, William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion, which was co-edited by Daniel Lukes, was released today, December 19. The book is a collection of twelve scholarly critical essays that argue Vollmann to be the most ambitious, productive, and important living author in the U.S. Jonathan Franzen, James Franco, and Michael Glawogger are among the contributors. 
Vollmann’s oeuvre includes not only outstanding work in numerous literary genres, but also global reportage, ethical treatises, paintings, photographs, and many other productions. He is a member of a group of authors who are responding to the skeptical ironies of postmodernism with a reinvigoration of fiction’s affective possibilities and moral sensibilities, and he stands out for his prioritization of moral engagement, historical awareness, and geopolitical scope.
We asked Coffman to reflect on his experience in writing the book:
What inspired the William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion?
CC: I started reading Vollmann about ten years ago, and was blown away by the first few books I read; there were few books written by living writers that affected me so powerfully. I didn’t know anyone else who read Vollmann, and I couldn’t find much scholarly criticism, which was really frustrating. As I explain in my introduction to our book, my coeditor and I wanted to make this book happen as a way of getting the literary-critical ball rolling.
What is it about Vollmann’s style that made such a deep impression on you?
CC: First, his complexity. He seems to be an honest and caring person, but he displays this by challenging common assumptions about what honesty and caring mean. He pushes the envelope a lot, in almost every sense. He writes sympathetically in fiction and nonfiction about people living in “the margins” (e.g., the homeless, prostitutes, violent criminals, illegal immigrants), and presents a lot of taboo and transgressive material. He is not for the squeamish.
And, he’s also “bookish.” He has a scholar’s love for field research and the archive, his books (even his fictions) are full of glossaries, chronologies, endnotes, footnotes, maps, and so forth. He also excels with historical complexity– for instance, he is four massive volumes into a planned seven-volume semi-fictionalized but exhaustively researched history of North America.
He has a global scope and uncompromising devotion to seeing the best and worst of the world and its populations. He has traveled to six continents, including the magnetic north pole (in winter! alone!), ran with the mujaheddin in Afghanistan while they fought the Soviets, rescued a girl from child prostitution in Thailand, visited the Balkans during the collapse of Yugoslavia, visited Fukushima just after the meltdown, observed civil wars and horrific genocides on several continents (including Somalia and the Congo), interviewed drug lords and yakuza bosses– the list goes on. These sorts of overseas stories combine with the more lurid aspects of his life on the home-front: smoking crack, being seriously investigated by the FBI as a Unabomber suspect, spending significant time and money on prostitutes and ammunition, cross-dressing, etc.
I guess what really wins me over, and what I think his most open-minded readers see, is that he writes about us at our worst, but he does it in the most beautiful prose and with the most uncompromisingly empathetic view imaginable. He is in some ways a writer’s writer. Franzen writes in the piece he gave us something like (I’m paraphrasing a little bit): ‘in spite of it all, when Bill talks with me, his questions are about writing, and usually along the lines of: what are her sentences like?’.
Tell us more about the process of creating the collection of essays. You have contributors from a variety of fields. How did you determine who to engage?
CC: As I say above, not many people had written on Vollmann, even though we knew people were reading him. We reached out in as many ways as we could conceive. We got in touch with our usual academic contacts, posted announcements online, reached out when we could locate contact information to those whom we knew were close professional contacts (often mentioned on the acknowledgment pages of his books), emailed critics of contemporary literature whom we thought might be interested, and shamelessly cold-called pretty much everyone who is anyone in the world of avant-garde and experimental fiction.
Surprisingly, there were a lot of enthusiastic responses, echoing the sentiment, “This is a book that needs to happen. Count me in.” Even those who couldn’t contribute for one reason or another expressed excitement, with encouraging words such as, “You need to do this anyway–it’s long overdue. I can’t wait to read it.” I’m pleased we got several figures who aren’t scholarly-types to contribute–not only his friends and peers like Franzen, but also really inspiring behind-the-scenes people like Carla Bolte, who was his book designer at Viking for several years, and who is just an absolutely amazingly bright, dedicated, enthusiastic, and kind woman.
So for those of us who haven’t read any works by Vollmann, do you have any recommendations of where we should begin?
CC: For newcomers, I’d recommend The Rainbow Stories or Europe Central. And my favorites are Fathers and Crows and Whores for Gloria.
We congratulate Coffman and Lukes for taking a leadership role in generating scholarly criticism on Vollmann. The book can be found on Rowman & Littlefied’s website.