"Move over, Pynchon--the 83-year-old Joseph McElroy is as inventive as ever, and this time he takes on the Iraq War." --Tom LeClair,The Daily Beast

"Since 1966, McElroy's novels have astonished and delighted by their brilliant wit, intelligence, and style."--Washington Post Book World

"McElroy is rightly compared with Gaddis and Pynchon."--Harper's Magazine

Written in a voice of passion, warning, and awakening, Joseph McElroy's ninth novel,Cannonball, takes us to a distant war we never understood and have half forgotten upheld by an unearthed new testament and framed by the American competitive psyche; yet always back to a California family, a bold intimacy between brother and sister, and a story of two springboard divers and their different fates.

Joseph McElroyis the recipient of the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Ingram Merrill foundations, as well as the NEA. He lives in New York City.