By canceling as much as possible the authorial presence and giving over the act of narrating entirely to objectified others, Matthiessen's novel gives the lie to conventional notions of univocal historical truth, substituting a choir of competing voices in its stead. The collection of interview transcripts, diaries, news clippings and historical records that constitutes the novel gives Matthiessen an opportunity to display his formidable powers as a stylist and his unerring ear for the nuances of voice — talents always in evidence in his work, but never more superbly executed. But Matthiessen does not employ stylistic brilliance for its own sake; indeed, coming to grips with the formal innovations of Killing Mister Watson is crucial for an understanding of the novel's themes.

Comparisons of this novel to the work of earlier writers — the social criticism of Sinclair Lewis, for example, or the evocation...