“Robin Field fully inhabits Stoner’s character, dragging every morsel of tragedy, inevitability, and, occasionally, wiliness and joy from Williams’ understated writing…Stoner is a small miracle of a novel that is enhanced by a narrator who is a perfect match. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile
Description
William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known.
Yet as the years pass, William Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.
John Williams’ luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.
Praise
“Robin Field fully inhabits Stoner’s character, dragging every morsel of tragedy, inevitability, and, occasionally, wiliness and joy from Williams’ understated writing…Stoner is a small miracle of a novel that is enhanced by a narrator who is a perfect match. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile
“A masterly portrait of a truly virtuous and dedicated man.” New Yorker
“It’s beautifully written in simple but brilliant prose, a novel of an ordinary life, an examination of a quiet tragedy.” Ruth Rendell, Edgar Award-winning author
“Stoner is written in the most plainspoken of styles…Its hero is an obscure academic who endures a series of personal and professional agonies. Yet the novel is utterly riveting, and for one simple reason: because the author, John Williams, treats his characters with such tender and ruthless honesty that we cannot help but love them.” Steve Almond, author of (Not That You Asked)
“An unjustly neglected gem.” People
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Jun 8, 2010 |
| Release Date | June 9, 2010 |
| Release Date Machine | 1276041600 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
| Categories | Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Classics, Literary Fiction, Evergreen Classics, Fiction - All, Fiction - Adult |
Author Bio
John Williams (1922–1994) was an editor, professor, and author of several works, including two volumes of poetry and three novels, Butcher’s Crossing, Stoner, and the National Book Award–winning Augustus. He was born in Texas and received his PhD from the University of Missouri in the early 1950s, where he also was a professor. In 1955 he became the director of the University of Denver’s creative writing program, where he became the editor of the University of Denver Quarterly.
Narrator Bio
Robin Field is the AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator of numerous audiobooks, as well as an award-winning actor, singer, writer, and lyricist whose career has spanned six decades. He has starred on and off Broadway, headlined at Carnegie Hall, authored numerous musical reviews, and hosted or performed on a number of television and radio programs over the years.
Overview
William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known.
Yet as the years pass, William Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.
John Williams’ luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.
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