Blurbs

“J.C. Hallman with wit and wisdom maps the now flashing, now somber streams of thought coursing through the correspondence of the James brothers, two of the undisputed geniuses in American letters. Whirling in the crosscurrents of this epistolary exchange are profound meditations on consciousness, imagination, and literary craft. But as Hallman brilliantly shows — often in prose as luminous as that in the letters — the concrete is inseparable from the abstract, the profane from the sacred: boils and bowels and aching backs and plain boredom challenge as well as inform the creative cogitations. In Hallman’s able hands, Wm and H’ry come dazzlingly alive as well-seasoned guides through the depths and shoals of the writing life and of everyday living.” Eric G. Wilson, author of My Business Is to Create and Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck.

“The relationship of brothers William and Henry James is one of the great mysteries of American literature. Short of reading the dozens of volumes of their correspondence, there was little hope of understanding it. J.C. Hallman has read all of them, and has distilled and illuminated their exchanges in this insightful and suspenseful story-essay. The work of William James is having a critical renaissance in our post-freudian, post-jungian, postmodern age, and it is breath-taking to read here how the modern novel and postmodern philosophy were shaped in the James crucible.” Andrei Codrescu, author of So Recently Rent a World.

“J.C. Hallman’s Wm & H’ry is an insightful, thorough analysis of Henry and William James’s letters, a delightfully intelligent and intimate study of their work, mutual influence, and the profound impact of the masters’ legacy.” Actor and James Scholar Hélène Cardona, author of Dreaming My Animal Selves

“J.C. Hallman’s cogent and imaginative musing on this fertile, conflicted, and brilliant literary correspondence . . . is rich in detail and important for our understanding of both William and Henry James . . .” John J. McDermott, general editor, The Correspondence of William James