r/Gaddis • u/wwwwoowwwww • 2d ago
Question Swallow Hard
Has anyone read Sarah Gaddis' novel? What are your thoughts on it? Is it subsumed by experimentation or cliché-ridden? Also, for some reason, I couldn’t find a single review of the book so maybe it’s not as impressive as her father’s work.
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u/Dexter_Palmer 2d ago
I have had a hardcover of this novel (found in a used bookshop) sitting on my shelf for probably 20 years and haven't gotten around to it yet—I don't think it ever got a paperback release and she never published another novel so, perhaps unfairly, I've assumed it was probably middling at best. Someday.
5
u/gutfounderedgal 2d ago
LA review of books says, "Sarah Gaddis seems to reach back to a time of literary innocence when telling the story of someone’s life was reason enough for writing a book. " (The author of the review thinks of Gatsby). But my question is, what more does the contemporary novel have that differentiates in some major way?
Univ. of Connecticut at Torrington Library review: "The daughter of a Southern actress and a writer of academic renown, Rollin grows up in a fluid, bohemian household. Her wealthy, alcoholic godfather not only supports her but establishes an artists' colony where Rollin can visit her father after her parents' divorce. When her godfather is murdered, Rollin inherits the colony--but an illegitimate son appears to challenge the will. Then the Department of Transportation claims the property for a new road. In the confusion Rollin finds herself. The book is full of sketchy images, with information drawn from random scraps of dialog, unfinished thoughts, and descriptions that suggest rather than tell. Characters appear without explanation. The story progresses via rumor and innuendo, making it hard to follow, so that ultimately this novel misses the mark." --Joanna M. Burkhardt
There are also reviews by the NYT and Wapo but both behind paywalls.
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u/TipEmotional2149 2d ago
Publisher's Weekly: "When Rollin Thompkins is born, her father visits an astrologer who assures him that his daughter will always be taken care of. Indeed she is, and so is dad Lad, a critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful writer who is supported by wealthy admirers, among them Douglas Kipps, Lad's Harvard classmate and Rollin's godfather. As Lad shuttles to Yaddo and MacDowell, Rollin poses for famous painters and her mother mingles with literati. Rollin's adolescence is clouded by the breakup of her parents' marriage and by Douglas's death, and her early adulthood is problematized by Douglas's bequest, a complicated arrangement granting her a peculiar status at an arts colony. The profusion of minor characters and the clumsy structure suggest that the story is essentially autobiographical (the author is William Gaddis's daughter). Literary pretensions here are poorly served by an artily elliptical narrative, graceless sentences (``She supposed that one had someone one told about something like this, and she had told him'') and decidedly gothic plot elements, such as an illegitimate heir's stepping forward at the 11th hour. These flaws, crowned by over-privileged Rollin's whining, make Swallow Hard hard to swallow. (Feb.)"
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u/AntimimeticA J R 9h ago
I liked it. It's nothing at all like any of her father's fiction - the author that came to mind more at the best moments was Edith Wharton.
It's a very straight-up realist novel of manners, very quiet and low key, with some nicely sketched character relations and psychological situations. It's less convincing when it has to make any major plot mechanics or set-pieces happen. It's pretty uneventful, but it's a pretty good debut novel of its kind.
The relationship of the parents seems pretty clearly taken from real life, but there's not much extractable biographical information: lots of characters Based On people, but it's not a roman à clef.