William Gaddis (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist. He wrote five novels, two of which won National Book Awards.
Gaddis was born in New York City to William Thomas Gaddis, who worked "on Wall Street and in politics," and Edith Gaddis, an executive for the New York Steam Corporation. When he was 3, his parents separated and Gaddis was subsequently raised by his mother in Massapequa, Long Island. At age 5 he was sent to...
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William Gaddis (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist. He wrote five novels, two of which won National Book Awards.
Gaddis was born in New York City to William Thomas Gaddis, who worked "on Wall Street and in politics," and Edith Gaddis, an executive for the New York Steam Corporation. When he was 3, his parents separated and Gaddis was subsequently raised by his mother in Massapequa, Long Island. At age 5 he was sent to Merricourt Boarding School in Berlin, Connecticut. He continued in private school until the eighth grade, after which he returned to Long Island to receive his diploma at Farmingdale High School in 1941. He entered Harvard in 1941 and famously wrote for the Harvard Lampoon (where he eventually served as President), but was asked to leave in 1944, supposedly because of a drunken brawl, though the circumstances are unclear. He worked as a fact checker for The New Yorker for two years, then spent five years traveling in Central America, the...
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