Middle C (novel)

The novel has two main threads: a bildungsroman describing the life of Joseph Skizzen, and Skizzen's own private philosophical meditations on how horrible humanity is. In addition, there are a few separate scenes from Skizzen's life, including two lectures on contemporary music to freshman, and conversations with his mother about gardening.

In the late 1930s, the Austrian Rudi Skizzen decides the current situation with Nazi Germany is only going to get worse, and decides to escape to London with his pregnant wife and young daughter. He successfully passes off his family as Jewish refugees, changing the family name to Fixel, his to Yankel. His son Yussel Fixel is born in London, and grows up with memories of the Blitz. Having made it to London, Yankel Fixel changes his name to Raymond Scofield, the better to blend in with the British. Having won a surprise payoff at the racetrack, he and the money disappear. The police cannot tell whether he was killed by criminals or if he bought himself yet another identity and emigrated.

After the war, the remaining Fixel family is relocated to America, ending up in the small town of Woodbine, Ohio. The family name reverts to Skizzen, with Yussel becoming Joey or Joseph, his mother keeping the name Miriam, and his sister becoming Deborah. In high school, Joey scrapes along as a mediocre student, and learns to play the piano passably. He develops a low-key interest in classical music, and works at a record store. Facing theft charges, he quits, and attends Augsburg Community College, which despite its name, was a Lutheran private college, not a "community college".

Joey spends two years at Augsburg, but quits after his French teacher clumsily tries to seduce him, and the rector forbids him from playing the organ part-time at his mother's Catholic church. He takes a job at the nearby Urichstown public library, buying a run-down car, forging a learner's permit for himself. He lives during the week in the librarian's converted garage. A load of donated books awakens an interest in contemporary music. But after some time, the librarian tries to seduce him, fails badly, and Joey finds himself evicted.

Moving back with his mother, Joseph cons his way into a teaching position at Whitterbauer College, located in Woodbine, and also a Christian college. With great effort, he publishes two measly articles on Schoenberg, finds himself tenured and given a house. Over the decades that follow, he works on his "Inhumanity Museum", the top floor of the house, with articles on man's inhumanity to man all over the walls and flypapered to the ceiling. His mother becomes a serious amateur gardener. Joseph successfully passes himself off as a slightly eccentric Austrian born and raised expert on 20th-century music.

The novel culminates in an ethics committee faculty meeting, whose high point is the exposure of a fraud amongst them. Joseph had been convinced he was going to be named, and is surprised and relieved that someone else is revealed. He is genuinely happy, seemingly for the first time in his life, but he is not able to share his happiness with anyone, not even his mother. The novel ends with Joseph in the house, his mother outside, Joseph waiting for her to come in, since "she couldn't cultivate her garden forever," a direct allusion to the end of Candide.

Joseph/Joey Skizzen is the only important character. He lives a life of mediocrity and petty fakeries, culminating in pretending to have been born and raised in Vienna, the son of a second violinist for the philharmonic. Part of his adopted persona is an alleged interest in the music of Schoenberg, confident that the right people will be impressed and that no one will be able to call him out.

In this exuberantly learned bildungsroman ... internationally lauded virtuoso Gass reflects on humanity's crimes and marvels, creating his funniest and most life-embracing book yet.

— Donna Seaman, Booklist, 2/15/2013

Gass beautifully coaxes the unheard music from a seemingly muted life.

— Lynn Nesbit, Publishers Weekly, 1/14/2013

Gass remains a master of apt metaphors, graceful sentences and a flinty, unforgiving brand of humor; it may be the most entertaining novel you'll read that half wishes humanity was wiped off the map.

— -, Kirkus Reviews, 3/12/2013

• Dillon, Brian (25 April 2013). "Metastatic flowering [print]/A ripe, fat read [online]". Times Literary Supplement: 25.
• Dirda, Michael (20 March 2013). "William H. Gass's 'Middle C'". The Washington Post.
• Gorra, Michael (4 April 2013). "An Inventory of Inhumanity". The New York Review of Books. 60 (6).
• Ozick, Cynthia (28 March 2013). "Holding the Key". The New York Times.
• Ruland, Jim (22 March 2013). "William H. Gass returns with music and lies in 'Middle C'". The Los Angeles Times.
• Sacks, Sam (9 March 2013). "The Themes and Variations of William Gass". Wall Street Journal. p. C6.
• Thoreen, David (29 March 2013). "'Middle C' by William H. Gass". The Boston Globe.