Carpenter's Gothic

After reading the beginning of the book "Carpenter's Gothic", by William Gaddis, I felt that I had a hard time picking up what was going on. So far I have picked up that the story is about a Vietnam war veteran named Paul who is married to Liz Booth, who is planning on leaving and going to Washington D.C for something. Throughout the section that I read, the two are arguing about Liz leaving to go to Washington D.C. I also know that the setting of the book is in New York City, because of the mention of the BQE. I also remember that Liz looks at a headline that says that General Motors lost $400 million dollars. This book is really hard to follow because of the way it is written. It is very hard to understand who is speaking because there are no quotations, instead there are these dashes that signify when someone is speaking. The book also doesn't say who said the line, it just says "she said, or he said". There are no names given after a person speaks. I also am finding this book difficult because Liz and Paul seem to jump around a lot when they are talking, at one moment Liz is talking about leaving, and then Paul changes the subject, saying that someone called Edie had called earlier. I feel that if the writing of this book was easier to understand, I would probably enjoy this book more.