Going to See the Elephant

"No writer I've ever read is as good as George Garrett when it comes to showing me both sides at the same instant. Fact and factoid, respect and derision, truth and falsehood, saint and sinner, art and dross, heads and tails, all show their bold faces in these stern yet cheerful pieces about literary triumphs and quasi-literary follies. There is much here for the younger writer trying to learn the way, but there is also plenty for us to chew on who thought we were veterans." 
—Henry Taylor, author of Brief Candles:101 Clerihews

"Here is The Literary Life in all its contemporary reality, from glory to gurry, remembered and related by one of America's true men of letters, George Garrett, novelist, poet, essayist, factotum of the Word. Going to See the Elephant should be required reading for everyone who contemplates setting pen to paper." 
—Brendan Galvin, author of The Strength of a Named Thing: Poems

"Going to See the Elephant is a safari into the wilds of the mind of George Garrett, and a more interesting place to explore is hard to imagine. Whether he (or his beleaguered alter-ego, John Towne) is examining the writing life, tipping his hat to other writers, or fulminating about the sorry state of the world we live in, he is well worth a listen -- both for the sheer pleasure of it and for the wisdom to be found in it. "
--R.H.W. Dillard, author of Understanding George Garrett

"Everybody who has ever known George Garrett has been, in one way or another, his student. I never sat in his class as a registered member, yet I have learned so much from him in the last twenty years of being in the fortunate multitude of his admirers. I have learned by his example, and through the wealth of his vast intelligence and wit. This book of meditations on the art and craft of writing, is, simply, treasure, stored up over the years he has practiced that art better than anyone else, bar none, has practiced it."  
—Richard Bausch, author of In The Night Season