William T. Vollmann

William T. Vollmann’s subject is 9/11. Always is, always was. Even before the attacks happened, they were somehow his thing. An Afghanistan Picture Show, Vollmann’s debut, was advertised as a Cold War memoir of a 22-year-old’s adventure battling the Soviets with the mujahideen. But it was really an inadvertent introduction to people and a place that were destined to become the enemies of America. Vollmann has spent his career writing around that day in 2001 – the first and main event of the 21st century – dissecting with retractor and forceps the American empire built before 9/11 and the country that the attacks created. Now, in his new novel, Vollmann faces the subject straight on. “A Table for Fortune is about September eleventh,” he writes to the reader at the start.