William T. Vollmann, Writer
A Texas Evening With an American Literary Original
William T. Vollmann, one of America's most ambitious writers of fiction and journalism, for years has produced a large volume of intriguing, exciting, and undeniably compelling work. He covers extraordinary, often times high-risk, topics and then distills his experience into masterful prose.
Who is William T. Vollmann?
He has no phone and no e-mail, but somehow the Texas State University English Department managed to cajole the prolific and profound recluse into making the trip. Milling around complimentary cookies and bottled waters in the university library, professors, students, readers, and writers, waited with excited anticipation. What might a world traveler, death scholar, and literary prodigy say?
Individuals have good reason to wonder. Vollmann’s scope of experience ranges from sitting in a canoe with a group of Inuit walrus hunters to sitting in the streets with Cambodian prostitutes. The choice of his subject matter and the depth in which he probes it displays the utter conviction of his calling, to write authentically and powerfully. According to Madison Smartt Bell in the February 6th 1994 New York Times article simply titled, “William T. Vollmann,” Vollmann’s dedication exhibits “a disregard for personal danger that would shame Hunter S. Thompson, or Jack London, or Errol Flynn.”
Critically Acclaimed Writing
Rising Up and Rising Down demonstrates how Vollmann approaches, grapples with, and grasps grand themes and core human questions. Unabridged, the work comprises of seven volumes (3,352 pages) worth of analysis and insight into violence, death, and the freedom of the living. In another work, Poor People, Vollmann searches across the globe’s most poverty stricken areas, interviewing the inhabitants, asking why they think they are in such a situation. More importantly, he begins asking why the poor seem happier than the rich.
Vollmann’s startling complexity and poignant empathy have not gone unnoticed. Atop many other awards, his 2005 fiction piece, Europe Central, won the National Book Award. And publications such as Playboy, Esquire, and The New Yorker consistently seek his expertise.
Glimpses of Genius
All this and more, the library room full of people considered. Finally, he took the podium, casually walking up in t-shirt and jeans, carrying his travel case with camera and writing supplies. Before reading an excerpt from Europe Central, he said that after the question/answer session and signing, he hoped everyone might go out for drinks.
Vollmann began to read, looking up into the audience’s eyes every so often, as if trying to see on their faces the visual traces of impact. He then proceeded into the book signing, drawing pictures on cover pages upon the permission of the book owners. Next came time for the Q & A. The session became a group conversation. One student asked him if he often gets compared to Cormac McCarthy due to their sparse punctuation styles. Vollmann transitioned by asking what the group speculated the cause of the apocalyptic setting in The Road to be. Nuclear winter, perhaps?
Another student asked Vollmann how he managed to stay so productive. He answered that he prefers to keep several projects going simultaneously. When one becomes “stale,” he simply rotates to another piece. As his advice resonated in their ears, they scribbled down on pads and notebooks the wisdom.
An Evening Ending
Once the session concluded, Vollmann again invited everyone out for drinks. A group of several students and a few of Vollmann’s old friends left and met at a local pub. There, conversation, along with a few beers, continued to flow. Completely unpretentious and genuinely interested in what everyone had to say, Vollmann provided the group with an experience to remember.
When it came time to say good bye, he individually asked each student if they would go home and write that night, as if to encourage them all. Judging by the eagerness in his tone and the glint in his eye, Vollmann left little to no doubt that that night, like countless others, he would be hunkered in a hotel, filling empty pages with more of his unique perspective.
World Traveler and Writer, William T. Vollmann
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