''Omensetter's Luck'' is the first

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

William H. Gass William Howard Gass (July 30, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven vol ...

, published in 1966.

Writing and publication

Gass began writing ''Omensetter's Luck'' around 1954. He was working on the last chapter of the novel in 1958 when the manuscript was stolen off his desk, forcing him to begin rewriting the book from scratch. He says of this time, "I was in a funk, a kind of fugue state. I reconstructed the book by working almost nonstop for about six months." The novel was eventually published in 1966 and has gone through many editions, both foreign and domestic, and remains in print today.

Plot

''Omensetter's Luck'' takes place in the 1890s in the fictitious town of Gilean,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. The story is bookended by the story of Brackett Omensetter who arrives with his family to settle down. The middle (and the bulk) of the novel is devoted to the spiritual and mental degradation of the town's priest, Jethro Furber, who is jealous of Omensetter's magnetic personality and the luck that seems to underpin Omensetter's existence. After a meeting to receive his monthly rent, Omensetter's landlord, Henry Pimber, disappears and is found much later, dead. Omensetter's luck changes soon after, forcing him to abandon Gilean, leaving the locals to question the role of Omensetter in Pimber's death.

Style

''Omensetter's Luck'' employs many literary techniques associated with the modernist literary movement, such as the inclusion of several

unreliable narrator An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unrel ...

s and the use of

stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver (physician), Daniel Ol ...

. The novel is structured in three sections: "The Triumph of Israbestis Tott," "The Love and Sorrow of Henry Pimber," and "The Reverend Jethro Furber's Change of Heart," each of which is narrated in the third person. The Jethro Furber section, which is told in

and takes up the majority of the novel, is reported by many readers to be the most difficult section to follow. In a ''

Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'' interview, Gass said, "When I first wrote the book, Furber wasn't even in it," and that it was only after rewrites that "Furber began to emerge. The book began to be the book I should have been writing all along. Now, a lot of people find that the Furber section is where the book goes to hell. As far as I am concerned, it is the only justification for that book."

Praise

In his Salon article naming five overlooked American novels written after 1960, novelist

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', whi ...

called ''Omensetter's Luck'' Gass's "least avant-gardeish, and his best." And

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

wrote, "William Gass has written an extraordinary, stunning, beautiful book. I admire him and it very much."William H. Gass and Theodore G. Ammon, (University of Mississippi Press. 2003) p.3.

References

*{{cite news, last=Morton, first=Frederic, url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/gass-luck.html, title=Of Mortality and Salvation, newspaper=

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

, date=April 17, 1966, accessdate=2008-06-21 1966 American novels Fiction set in the 1890s Novels set in Ohio 1966 debut novels New American Library books