Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Joy Williams has a one-of-a-kind gift for capturing both the absurdity and the darkness of everyday life. In Ninety-Nine Stories of God, she takes on one of mankind's most confounding preoccupations: the Supreme Being.
This series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It's the Book of Common Prayer as seen through a looking glass--a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams's characters, however, are like the rest of us: anonymous strivers and bumblers who brush up against God in the least expected places or go searching for Him when He's standing right there. The Lord shows up at a hot-dog-eating contest, a demolition derby, a formal gala, and a drugstore, where he's in line to get a shingles vaccination. At turns comic and yearning, lyric and aphoristic, Ninety-Nine Stories of God serves as a pure distillation of one of our great artists.
Industry Reviews
I would follow the trail of Joy Williams s words always beautiful, compelling, and so wise anywhere they led." Admirers of Williams and anyone who treasures a story well told should be one will find much to like here. anyone who treasures a story well told should be one will find much to like here blog-era bible as conceived by Borges, Barthelme, and Mark Twain. No writer alive captures the voices in the post-millennial psychic wilderness like Joy Williams. Ninety-Nine Stories of God feels like prayer to me . [Williams] is ... a master of momentum Williams addicts will mainline [Ninety-Nine Stories of God]; Joy Williamsis one of America's greatest living writers. Magnificent [T]hese stories are 100% Williams: funny, unsettling, and mysterious, to be puzzled over and enjoyed across multiple readings. Joy Williams is one of America's greatest living writers. Masterly . . . Ms. Williams is her usual funny, irreverent self.--The New York Times gorgeously written Weirdly soothing Each story, like living tissue, is a reliquary that makes something splendid of our most secret agonies and desires.--Darcey Steinke, author of SISTER GOLDEN HAIR These stories are as full of surprises as a Noah s Ark filled with mystical beasts, three of each.--Edmund White, author of A BOY'S OWN STORY" The word count of this slender, extraordinary collection belies the density and combustibility of its contents, their midnight hilarity and edgeless reach. Joy Williams is our feral philosopher.--Karen Russell, author of VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE These modern fables and skewed vignettes make the implausible plausible. Compression, as done by Joy Williams, extends the reach of her stories.--Amy Hempel, author of AT THE GATES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM Sly and wonderful Baffling and illuminating, witty and disturbing A collection of fiction for our fractured times from a modern master Every Joy Williams publication is a cause for celebration Each story in this collection shoots like a flare over the abyss of our existential dilemma Admirers of Williams--and anyone who treasures a story well told should be one--will find much to like here. I would follow the trail of Joy Williams's words--always beautiful, compelling, and so wise--anywhere they led. These stories are as full of surprises as a Noah's Ark filled with mystical beasts, three of each.--Edmund White, author of A BOY'S OWN STORY Williams addicts will mainline [Ninety-Nine Stories of God]; Ninety-Nine Stories of God feels like prayer to me .
