Tracking the ever-elusive Great American Novel

[jd]

"There were those who sighed that they could not possibly select one
book to place at the summit of an edifice with so many potential
building blocks - they hadn't read everything, after all - and also
those who railed against the very idea of such a monument. One famous
novelist, unwilling to vote for his own books and reluctant to
consider anyone else's, asked us to "assume you never heard from me.""

This sounds more like Vollmann.  I do believe that one or the other
was him, especially because of this:

"IS this quantitative evidence for the decline of American letters -
yet another casualty of the 60's? Or is the American literary
establishment the last redoubt of elder-worship in a culture mad for
youth? In sifting through the responses, I was surprised at how few of
the highly praised, boldly ambitious books by younger writers - by
which I mean writers under 50 - were mentioned. One vote each for "The
Corrections" and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," none for
"Infinite Jest" or "The Fortress of Solitude," a single vote for
Richard Powers, none for William T. Vollmann, and so on."

Nice little jab at how he got no votes, which I'm not sure would have
been included had he been cooperative.  I guess Fortress of Solitude
and Infinite Jest got it, too, but Vollmann is definitely the name
that stands out in that paragraph, to me at least, as the one who got
no votes (it was only after a second read that it really registered
that Lethem and Wallace got 0 as well).  Maybe it's just me.