SOURCE: Saltzman, Arthur. “A Columbus of the Near-at-Hand.” In Understanding Nicholson Baker, pp. 1-14. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

In the following essay, Saltzman provides an overview of Baker's life, writings, literary style and thematic concerns, and critical reception.

Nicholson Baker has established himself as contemporary fiction's principal detective and dissector of epics that await the reader at close range. Thanks to Baker's extraordinary attention to ordinary objects and processes, restroom paper towels and computer paper perforations have been accorded the same descriptive indulgence as Achilles' shield; tying shoes and writing with a ballpoint pen on a rubber spatula rise to high drama; the fates of popcorn poppers and peanut butter jars are crucial planks in a private political platform, quietly alive with social implications. With unrivaled patience and meticulousness, Baker tweezes poetry out of a seemingly prosaic environment, which brims for him with compacted extravagance, ingrown...