JR is a 700-page satire of capitalism featuring 120 characters who speak in unattributed quotes. It has been called ‘unreadable’. Nick Sullivan, who narrated the new audiobook, reveals how it engulfed his life
In the winter of 2009, Nick Sullivan received what would become his most daunting commission. “They sent me this huge cardboard box,” says the actor and audiobook narrator. “This was back before books were digitised. They told me it was long – and that I had as much time as I wanted to work on it. Uh-oh, I thought, that’s unusual. That’s when I went online and discovered all about JR.”
Written by William Gaddis, the Manhattan-born late modernist, JR was published in 1975, 20 years after the author’s first huge novel, The Recognitions, had been met with confusion, anger and indifference. JR tells the story of JR Vansant, an 11-year-old latchkey kid in Massapequa, New York, who – over the course of 700-plus pages – assembles a vast and corrupt financial empire, while all around him adults struggle and flounder.