[Eyes 01] • Eyes

**Enter the sublime, upside-down / inside-out world of William H. Gass . . . in this case where the  *Eyes*  have it every which way, including up . . . in a dazzling new collection of novellas and stories (six in all) from one of the most revered writers of our time, author of sixteen books, among them, the universally acclaimed *The Tunnel* ("An extraordinary achievement"--Michael Dirda, *The Washington Post*); *Middle C*("Exhilaratingly ingenious"--Cynthia Ozick, *The New York Times Book Review* cover); and *Life Sentences* ("A literary miracle"--*The New York Observer*).**

This enchanting, Gassian journey begins with "In Camera," an investigation into what is likely to develop when a possibly illicit collection of photographs becomes the object of a greedy salesman's loving eyes . . . In "Charity," a young lawyer, whose business it is to keep hospital equipment honestly produced, offers a simple gift and is brought to the ambiguous heart of charity itself. "Don't Even Try, Sam" tells of the battered, old piano Dooley Wilson plays in *Casablanca* as it complains in an interview of its treatment during the making of the picture. "Soliloquy for a Chair" is just that, a rumination by a folding chair in a barber shop that is ultimately bombed . . . and in "The Toy Chest," Disneylike creatures take on human roles and worries and live in an atmosphere of a child's imagination.

A glorious fantasia; each, quintessentially Gass; each, a virtuoso delight.

*From the Hardcover edition.*