William Gass, a writer...

...whom you may have never heard -- and I admittedly haven't read -- died at age 93. I remember his name from a college English class in connection with his work, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country. From his New York Times obit (my emphasis):

Since his first novel, “Omensetter’s Luck,” was published in 1966, Mr. Gass was one of the most respected authors never to write a best seller. (He wrote only two other novels but many novellas, short stories and essays.)

He received a raft of awards, including two National Book Critics Circle Awards for collections of criticism and philosophy: “Habitations of the Word” in 1985 and “Finding a Form” in 1997. He won four Pushcart Prizes, the Pen-Faulkner Prize and a $100,000 lifetime achievement award from the Lannan Foundation in 1997.

The novelist John Barth, a fellow practitioner of metafiction, predicted that Mr. Gass would someday rank high in the history of American arts and letters. “If he doesn’t,” Mr. Barth said in 1999, “it will be history’s fault.”

As I said, I've never read anything by Mr. Gass. Since I recognized his name, though, I read his obituary with anticipation. And I found it encouraging; here was a guy content to live in obscurity writing works of fiction that he thought had real value, rather than best sellers that would have made him rich. I've started novels by writers like Stephen King and John Grisham and just couldn't get very far. It's not that I'm some kind of literary snob; I actually don't read much fiction. But I just don't like wasting my time on pulp fiction. So I admire someone like Gass who decides he's not going to write for a popular audience but instead aspire to create the highest quality art possible. Looks like he never got rich, but he lived comfortably. I hope he gets the recognition he deserves some day.