"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

Acknowledgments
I. The Nostalgic Man in Crisis 1
II. High Blood Pleasure 17
III. Writer in Residence 35
IV. Chasing Melville 43
V. Sex and Wittgenstein 83

Frank Lentricchia is Katherine Everett Gilbert Professor of Literature at Duke University and author of such books as After the New Criticism, Critical Terms for Literary Study, Introducing Don DeLillo, and Ariel and the Police. He is also the author of a memoir, The Edge of Night, and several works of fiction, including the novels Johnny Critelli, The Knifemen, and The Music of the Inferno.