I am engaged in a novel of which for the moment there's little more to say than that, to assist the unwary, it will have proportionately more commas than its predecessor [J.R.] fewer characters and locales then the book before that [The Recognitions], be prudently shorter than either and, if the characters continue to behave themselves, be labeled "a romance."

– William Gaddis, 1982, for the New York Times

https://x.com/Teaweave/status/2042736834027876354?s=20 which says:

Carpenter's Gothic by William Gaddis was written with so much hatred it is astounding. Deep, palpable hatred.

This book is like uncut gems my gawd. It starts off insanely fast and intense and does not let off the brakes for a second. We spend most of the book confined to the inside of the house and inside the mind's of the myopically shortsighted characters. Gaddis lets us know that he can step outside the house and describe "Real Life" if he so chooses, and then denies us for almost a hundred pages:

The bird, a pigeon was it? or a dove (she’d found there were doves here) flew through the air, its colour lost in what light remained. It might have been the wad of rag she’d taken it for at first glance, flung at the smallest of the boys out there wiping mud from his cheeks where it hit him, catching it up by a wing to fling it back where one of them now with a broken branch for a bat hit it high over a bough caught and flung back and hit again into a swirl of leaves, into a puddle from rain the night before, a kind of battered shuttlecock moulting in a flurry at each blow, hit into the yellow dead end sign on the corner opposite the house where they’d end up that time of day.

Great blog posts about this novel and it's thematic portrayal of interiority:

Elizabeth, and searching for stability she telephones for the time. (If you are a young person perhaps bewildered by this detail: This is something we used to do. We used to call a number for the time. Like, the time of day. You can actually still do this. Call the US Naval Observatory at 202-762-1069 if you’re curious what this aesthetic experience is like).

Everything in the house reflects Liz's imprisonment therein.

Chapter 1 introduces Elizabeth, the wife, her brother Billy who's some sort of hippie communist grifter living off of daddy's checks meted out by the manager of their trust fund Adolfo. The central character is Elizabeth Booth, 33, an heiress locked out of her inheritance. Elizabeth is married to an awful abusive man named Paul, a racist Vietnam Veteran who embodies almost every characteristic of what we now think of as toxic masculinity. Paul is the abusive husband who continuously interrupts Liz to her to ask her father for more money probably abuses her. Paul hates her brother who is a deadbeat in his eyes. Elizabeth is recovering from an as-yet-unspecified accident, and spends most of her time confined to her rented house, fielding phone calls. Some of these phone calls are from folks related to her husband’s latest scheme with a televangelist. Other calls are from her friend Edith who has run off to sunny Jamaica – a prospect of escape that entices Elizabeth. Even more calls come for the mysterious owner of the house, McCandless, who eventually shows up in the third chapter

In the first chapter, Paul gets home and immediately starts hounding Lizz about what calls he received and finds out that she was on the phone with her best friend Edie who is inherited $1 million fortune that she wishes to spend a way despite her bitch mom. Paul insists that Liz needs to ask her for some money for his start venture and is also fucking furious that she was on the phone for an hour after his car broke down since Billy's repair was very shoddy. He wants her friend Edie's father, who is friends with Senator Teakal to pull some strings to try to get father Reverend Ude on the air. Father Reverend has just drowned a boy during a botched baptism though.

While Billy was "intruding," he made some remark about bruises on Liz's arm, implying abuse from Paul. She excuses them as having been acquired from bumping into the bookcase. When Paul gets home, he upbraids her for showing off her bruises:

—No please... she pulled away, cringed lower, his hand on her bared shoulder

—you're hurting my...

—Well what the hell are you wearing this thing for! He was back out of reach, a hand out for his glass, —you haven't worn it since summer.

—But what, I just...

—Show off your bruise? Sleeveless thing to show off your God damn combat badge to the neighbors and anybody who...

—I don't know any neighbors!

—And your brother what about your brother, your...

—I said I'd bumped into a bookcase. When do you want supper.

Immediately after complaining about how shitty of an excuse of bookcases, considering that there's no goddamn bookcases in the entire house, Paul bumps into a coffee table, which probably does leave a bruise. The book is subtly hilarious.

It is implied that Liz lost the use of "marital faculties" due to injuries incurred in a plane crash which Paul urges her to pursue a lawsuit about. Liz gets locked out of the house after someone steals her purse at the mall. Upon returning home, she receives a strange visit from someone (Lester) looking for McCandless. Lester accuses her of being McCandless's latest redhead.

Billy drops by again, clocks Paul as someone inferior and liz latching on to someone she can make feel inferior like Adolf made them feel inferior. Paul’s bullshit war stories:

—You know Bibbs? He was standing there leaning against the doorframe, —like I've always wondered. I mean how you'd always find somebody that's just not as good as you are? I mean like that Arnold? and that guy from Florida that's going to be this great actor and the old man threw him out of the house? I mean it goes way back, like playing doctor with that little prick Bobbie Steyner they said only had one ball? where he got you down in the boathouse and tried to get your pants down?

—No, no Billy honestly...

—No I mean no shit Bibbs. These real inferior types I mean this real instinct, like you were always this beautiful girl with red hair and this real pale white skin and these great high cheekbones and this whole like, like something vulnerable where they want to get in there to protect you and waste you all at the same time? and like they're the only ones you'd ever let in? where he's pulling your pants down and you still think you've got the upper hand? Like I mean it goes all the way back where you practiced on me when I was like three, when you put that little yellow fucking doll's dress on me in that toy crib and you were the mommy or you wouldn't play with me? No I mean don't laugh Bibbs... But she wasn't, it was a sound choked off somewhere between that and loss —where if I didn't answer when you called me Jennifer you wouldn't even talk to me? He'd turned away looking into the living room, cracking his knuckles behind him, filling the doorway.

—But it was, Billy don't you see it was how it all started, because you were the only...

—Man I know how it fucking started! I mean that time at the table when I threw some applesauce and the old man grabbed me and put my plate on the floor in the corner, if you want to behave like a dog you can eat like a dog does, I mean I was his dog till he got his own fucking dogs. I mean you don't ever fucking forget that. All his big crazy ideas where he's this advisor to presidents, this master of corporate strategy, master of this far flung mining empire master of bullshit all he ever did was push people around and let somebody else pick up the pieces. He bullied anybody that got near him like he bullied us, like he bullied mother like he bullied you till you'd do anything to get out, so you did what you always did. You find this inferior person, you know he's fucking inferior and you've married the same thing you tried to get away from. Like why do you think the old man took Paul on in the first place, because he'd found somebody just as fucking inferior as he was, the only difference the old man was smart and like I don't mean intelligent, I mean there's a big fucking difference. Like where Paul first showed up talking about he's this big wounded hero with...

Liz can never even get a word in edgewise, constantly being talked over and screamed at. McCandless seems to be the only one to see her.

Paul returns and complains about Billy showing up to ask for money:

—No now wait Liz that's, wait. We're trying to do something, trying to do something Liz trying to live like civilized, get out of the God damn hole here live like civilized people Liz I'm trying to build something here, have something to show for it he just wants to show his contempt for it, for everything, worse the use he can find for it the better that's what he does with it. Rock bands, queers, spades out there dealing drugs and all this Buddhist crap you know he just tried to pull that on me again out there? that karma crap he got from those Tibetan creeps he had following him around? Same thing Liz the same God damn thing, that greasy little burr head monk in the red blanket doing him a favour taking his money same God damn thing, giving him a chance to show his contempt for the money, show his contempt for the people he gives it to and the system it came out of like all these God damn kids parading around with their guitars and their hair dyed pink they'll scam, con, deal, the worse fraud they can skim a few dollars off of the better the one God damn thing they won't do is work for it, did he ever earn a nickel? work one God damn day in his life?

Paul himself is an insane grifter. He calls up Fr. Ude to try to give him a list of talking points, but only gets his young son on the phone. Accordingly, he must instruct the child to fetch pen and paper to jot down Paul's directions to relay to his father.

—Thinks I'm calling him about a movie, big movie they want to make call it The Wayne Fickert Story get the kid's mother in there as the, hello? got the pencil? Good, now here's the big picture, we... not the movie I just told you not the movie look, talking about keying our overall media strategy to your daddy's next big appearance. Got him on the front page we want to keep him on the front page, that's the whole... I said his next big appearance, crusade out there just kicked things off we've got California wrapped up, taped, broadcast, headlights purple ribbons the whole package, what he... what... ? No well that's just what I'm saying Bobbie Joe now just listen here. What your daddy wants now, he wants a platform that's going to give his image real dignity, He wants... well I know he has but we want to show them a real serious issue he can sink his teeth into, that's... the what...? No wait, that's... Look that's not what I... No now look here Bobbie Joe, I know they's eight hundred million Catholics out there he considers a field ripe for harvest but let's not jump the God, jump the gun here. I'm talking about education, school education. Now here's this big southwest regional educators' conference where they've got him up there giving the keynote address? You've got prominent educators coming in from all over Texas, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma Arkansas the whole backbone of American education? Now what we... no wait a minute, don't want to get into that no, break a few school bus windows that's not what I'm talking about, look. He's just announced he's founding the Wayne Fickert Bible College now that's the... call it the what? When did he promise you that, he... No but that's way back when you were just a little old boy, he goes and changes it now to the Bobbie Joe Ude Bible College you'll have these media people in there twisting things around now what he's talking about up there, he's talking about these high education standards. That's what he's got Wayne Fickert Bible College dedicated to. Now he takes that real good idea of yours where the men students will all wear jackets and ties? Starts right off there talking about these high academic standards and the... what? That's a, c, a, d e m i c you got that? What...? Well go find a piece of paper then I'll hold on, Liz? Can you stop all this messing here and go get me a shirt?

—Do you want the...

—Just a shirt any God damn shirt, stand here freezing to death while he looks for a piece of paper, gets a pencil it doesn't occur to him he'll need something to hello? All set now... ? Not every word no, just giving you a list of talking points for your daddy to go over for this speech here. First he's talking about this desperate need for academic excellence? how it's being threatened throughout the land by these same forces threatening the Constitution? that's the... what? That's capital c, o, n look Bobbie Joe, is your sister there... ? She just wet her what? No, no I mean Betty Joe, your big sister Bet... locked up in the what? but who... Caught holding hands with a boy now that don't sound so... Oh. Oh, well now she's bound to meet a real nice white boy one of these days don't you fret, now you got a dictionary there anywhere... ? Well I know it's a real big word but you'll just have to do the best you can till your daddy sends out for a die... Well he can't just not allow a dictionary in the house because it's got swear words in it, now let's get... all right, just do the best you can, hear? How the US Constitution protects religious freedom, that's the right to enforce prayers in the schools you got that? Next thing he talks about academic freedom. Now that's where they feel real strong, teaching these science courses where these same forces trying to destroy the Constitution are trying to stop them teaching science like they're trying to stop free speech, pushing his television show off the air, twisting the ratings lying with statistics the whole... of the what... ? No well now I'd just go a little easy on that Satan the father of lies for right now Bobbie Joe. This audience of real good Americans they already know that, he wants to talk to them more about how these liberal media people are trying to squeeze him so he can't get up there and preach against sin, can't support his Africa missions, trying to keep his Bible College from sending out these fine well educated Christian men and women for... to where... ? I know that Bobbie Joe but we're not talking about Jaypan now, a great harvest field that's been long neglected I know he's got a real heavy anointing to get in there and save them but this audience isn't coming to hear about Jaypan, hundred million of them all bunched up in those little islands they've got enough Buddhism and Shintoism to keep them busy besides, they don't vote he can harvest them later, let's just take one continent at a time here. Now Christianity's an American religion, that's what he's talking about isn't it? the only bulwark there is against the spread of the evil empire? That's what he's... well now wait, I'd go easy on the... Well now look, I think this audience is pretty well harvested already or they wouldn't be sitting there, they come out of the hall and he has you outside there selling the Little Wayne lapel pin, the t shirts with the smartly designed Little Wayne logo and your record albums Pearly Gates singing Elton Ude's Christmas Favorites you're going to get the liberal media twisting the whole God, whole thing into a carni... Who, Pearly Gates? What kind of a parade... Well your daddy he can just bring that in talking about the constitutional right to bear arms but I'd just go real easy on this Bobbie Joe. See I know your daddy's got Pearly Gates all fired up about how angry Satan is over all the souls you all have rescued but this audience now, they're all educators. Now that means you've got a nice white audience out there they might just not take to it, he better just stay with the singing hold on a minute... cupping the phone against his groin, —this the only shirt you could find?

—You said just to bring you any...

—White one right out there on the chair, never mind I'll get it myself hello? Look, now one more thing. You tell your daddy make sure he's got a flag up there on the platform when he... No now listen here, his picture on the front page all over the country they's going to be yankees seeing it too, it better just be the regular American flag, and you tell him when he's done his speech he just doesn't need to give any press conference, all they'll... Look I know they's all friends there Bobbie Joe but you get somebody infiltrating from the liberal media they'll twist things around to beat all get out, like they did when your daddy said he was a Zionist? that that's the Holy Land where you'll have Jesus' Second Coming but he won't show up till all the Jews there are born again? where they had him saying that the only thing that keeps the Jews Jews is being hated by everybody else? Who do you think runs this liberal media, now look. When he's done his speech he just wants to get down there and circulate with these prominent educators, you hear? Get their names and addresses everybody registered for this conference and get your Bible students down there working on your mailing lists that's the... Well then get some of them off the night shift at the bottling plant, somebody gets his Pee Dee water a week late's not going to kill him now one more thing. Your daddy tell you there's somebody supposed to meet me later there at National Airport? Little gift shop right there at the... no problem I'll have on a red tie, little gift shop right there at the head of the ramp you make sure he's there, hear? Got to hurry now, I... you bet. We'll... You bet Bobbie Joe, you... you bet. Liz? What time is it.

The stress of Halloween morning causes Lizz to throw up just about as soon as Paul walks out the door and she is overwhelmed by the retinue of chores that will go on abandoned throughout the day. McCandless arrives...

“It’s Halloween out there too.”

Jesus christ, it's jason bourne. He engages in an argument with Lester about CIA operations in Africa near a mine that McCandless claims to have been responsible for identifying for its mineral value, but he doesn't want anything to do with it anymore. He's so jaded and cynical about Christian evangelists (Lester is a Catholic?). It's so muddy so fast. Lester is trying to reel him in for "one last job" type of deal, but McCandless wants no part in it – also berates Lester for stealing Liz's purse to scare her/gain access to the house. Easier ways to get a hold of McCandless, who nevertheless wants to be left alone.

—Five thousand. He tossed the canceled passport into the open carton, —you're going to need it... and his boot thrust out to tip the shoe crossed over a knee there, —see that? See where there's no hair growing till way above your ankle there? That's what I told you, that's the whisky and the cigarettes working on you together that's your circulation failing, that's when your toes turn green. Either smoke your cigarettes or drink your whisky that would mean you'd decided to, that you wanted it, but both of them together you know what that is McCandless? That's a character flaw, that shows an inferior character you know that? Talk about your lobotomies, when you used to say I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy where'd you get that, that's somebody else too isn't it because you've got one, the figures on lung cancer right in front of you like the facts staring those primates square in the face out there choking on Genesis and you say it's just a statistical parallel and light another. Five thousand. You're going to need it just for hospital bills... and his boot, gone back to fretting the carton, brought him down for a handful of scraps, snapshots, repetitive landscapes, uncomposed glimpses of dips, outcroppings, —is this it? He held one out, —Klinger's site? They all look the same.

They debate about the merits of science and religion, virtue and vice. On par with City of God chapter from The Magic Mountain. They also debate the definitions of amputation:

—I don't want to read it. I don't need to read it... He bent over the file drawer to push aside a folder, another, —maybe I can help you. Clean all this up you'll need some help won't you, he brought up papers in a handful, caught one from dropping with the rest —here's your accident policy with Bai Sim Casualty, Burundi, convenient offices everywhere. Loss of life five thousand dollars, taken out by Lendro Mining that's not very flattering is it.

—One trip, that was one trip across the... —Now wait, wait. Loss of both hands, both feet, both eyes, a hand or a foot and an eye you still pick up the five thousand. That's not bad is it. Nothing here about thumbs though... He'd glanced up at the tobacco spilling from the ends of a paper being drawn into a new cigarette, —or toes, it's got to be the whole hand or foot. Loss means actual severance through or above wrist or ankle joints for hands or feet, maybe you'll have better luck next time... and he let it fall with a new handful of envelopes, ticket folders, a prescription —didn't know you needed glasses, I never saw you with glasses here, you better hang on to this... He held out a bank note, —ever get back over there you may need it. What are these.

which is perfected later on:

—Whose evangelicals do you want then! Whose fundamentalists do you want, talk about your little taste of Georgia how about a little taste of Islam? You think your Georgia judge there sounds any different from an ayatollah? You talk about chopping off hands, you want them sitting you out there in a public square with the Moslem Brotherhood piling in shouting Allah Akbar while they, where's your insurance policy, actual severance through or above the wrist and you run in to collect your five thousand from Bai Sim convenient offices everywhere? Whose jihad do you want, McCandless! They've been at it for a thousand years, they've been at it since ten ninety when Hasan brought his cutthroats out of Qum, cut your throat and they're guaranteed a seat in paradise. Talk about having business with the Bible how about having business with the Koran, if you think...

Liz segues into an affair with Mr. McCandless and then he gets to leave and says something about I'd rather come back as a vulture and attribute it to Faulkner at which point she says I like Faulkner, says she read Heart of Darkness and then relays the plot of as I lay dying instead lol:

But he'd drawn her down, laid out the length of her beside him —no no no, his voice as calming as the hand along her back, it was all just part of the eternal nonsense, where all the nonsense comes from about resurrection, transmigration, paradise, karma the whole damned lot. —It's all just fear he said, —you think of three quarters of the people in this country actually believing Jesus is alive in heaven? and two thirds of them that he's their ticket to eternal life? fingertips running light as breath down skirting the top of the rift, tracing down its edge, just this panic at the idea of not existing so that joining that same Mormon wife and family in another life and you all come back together on judgment day, coming back with the Great Imam, coming back as the Dalai Lama choosing his parents in some Tibetan dung heap, coming back as anything —a dog, a mosquito, better than not coming back at all, the same panic wherever you look, any lunatic fiction to get through the night and the more farfetched the better, any evasion of the one thing in life that's absolutely inevitable... his fingers searching the edge of the rift and down it, deeper, desperate fictions like the immortal soul and all these damned babies rushing around demanding to get born, or born again, easing the rift wider to the moistened breadth of his hand, —I'd come back as a buzzard Faulkner said once, nothing hates him or wants him or needs him or envies...

—Oh! she pulled away, up on that damned elbow again —have you read Faulkner much?

—A long time ago. If then.

—What?

—Never mind. He'd sat straight up, one foot off to the floor.

—But, I mean don't you like Faulkner?

—I don't like Faulker. I don't dislike Faulkner. He'd got hold of his trousers, —I just don't know why in hell we're talking about Faulkner.

—But why are you, I mean where are you going.

—Cigarette... he had one leg in, —I left things downstairs. —But no... she caught at his shoulder —I mean, you don't have to right now do you? get up I mean?

—Why not.

—Well because you, I mean because we were talking... her hand running down his arm, down where he'd wilted there before her eyes —and you might not come back.

—As what, a dog? a mosquito? He pulled the trouser leg up sharply, freed his leg for the other one —as a buzzard?

—No that's not what I, I mean I didn't mean to upset you about Faulkner I thought you were talking about Faulkner, and I mean I don't know if I've read Faulkner much either. Except The Heart of Darkness, I think I read that once.

Adolfo is the executor of the fund that Billy and Liz take money out of. He protects it from "incursions," presumably Paul borrowing against it.

—Like does that mean Adolph should hand it over to these doctors for seven hundred and fucking thirty thousand dollars? It should have brought like over three million so he does this big deal with this doctor syndicate and puts it right in the trust. He should have split it between us but it's in the trust where we can't touch a fucking nickel. It's his obligation as trustee to conserve the assets of the trust so the trust can meet its obligations he tells me, he has to guard the trust against unwarranted incursions, you know what that is Bibb? That's Paul, that's fucking Paul going around trying to borrow against it that's what he's been...

Sounds like the actual father shot himself once he got into a tough spot about bribes and Paul is now being the fall guy after he was let go presumably to keep everything quiet? Grimes is now the one in charge of the business.

Leicester is a gay CIA agent, but when his homosexuality seems to have come out in Somalia or wherever the fuck he is, they said they took him for an agent, he might as well have been one. And I think this is a really clever pun about him being an agent of the devil via homosexuality as well as a CIA agent:

hey'd recruited him. Cruikshank spotted the cold blooded fervour in those hard little eyes, he was Chief of Station, set up a Somali they had ten years on for stealing some truck tires and when Lester woke up he knew he was finished, homosexuality's the bottom of the pit out there, everybody taking him for an agent he might as well be one. All the discipline, obedience all the missionary zeal put a gun or a Bible in hands like that and they're just as deadly

It sounds like on the road trip down to New York City Mr. McCandless convinced Billy that he ought to go out to Africa and got Adolfo to send him out there. Paul tried to convince him not to saying that it was the same man Mr. Grimes, that is who got him to go to Vietnam, but then Billy, who is already looking for an out still goes and get shot out of the fucking sky by Zambians? The CIA politics get really fucking heavy, really fucking fast and like the last quarter of this book is insane.

I love how much conspiracy the book entertains in the last 25 pages or so. Paul getting into the limo with Edie and immediately making a move on her. We're not told anything about the FBI agent, we're not told anything about McCandless's whereabouts, we just know that Paul is still wheeling and dealing and telling father son what he needs to do in order to beat the case before disappearing probably to Haiti? Insane book oh my God.

related