Wyatt Gwyon, raised by a Calvinist aunt after his mother's death in Spain, becomes a forger of Flemish masters, and the novel spirals outward into a vast satire on authenticity, art, religion, and mid-century American commerce. Gaddis worked on it for seven years; it was almost a thousand pages; it was ignored on publication. Critics who noticed it were baffled or hostile. Decades later, it was recognized as one of the great American novels, the precursor to Pynchon and DeLillo and the whole postmodern tradition. The prose is dense with erudition and dialogue that overlaps like cocktail party chatter. It demands everything from its readers and rewards everything it demands.