Lucchesi and The Whale

"In "Lucchesi and The Whale," with a daring that verges on recklessness, Frank Lentricchia closes the traditional gaps dividing critical practice from creative writing. One has encountered intertextuality before; this is something more adventurous: inter-genre. Only a great literary critic could pull off the fictional tricks on display here. The ambition of this remarkable work is summed up in one of the hero-narrator's Melvillean instructions: 'A word to my students: live like a no-holds-barred autobiography of yourself, hide nothing, so that you'll be free for serious writing.' This is very serious writing."--John Sutherland, University College London