Direct Download: 20041123-william.mp3

William T. Vollmann's body of work derives as much from his experiences - such as participating in the Afghan-Soviet war and associating with prostitutes in Thailand and San Francisco's Tenderloin district - as from an ever-innovative literary imagination. His stories have complicated plots, and he frequently critiques both past and present human behavior: his Seven Dreams series offers a postcolonial interpretation of U.S. history, while he denounces modern materialism in The Royal Family. Rising Up and Rising Down is abridged from the 7-volume treatise originally published by McSweeney's in 2003.