**The definitive story collection "by one of the most celebrated
American short-story writers.... Powerful, important, compassionate, and
full of dark humor. This is a book that will be reread with admiration
and love many times over" (Vanity Fair).
**
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four
decades, her renown passing as a given from one generation to the next
even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. At long last the
incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display:
thirty-three stories drawn from three much-lauded collections, and
another thirteen appearing here for the first time in book form.
Forty-six stories in all, far and away the most comprehensive volume in
her long career, showcasing her crisp, elegant prose, her dark wit, and
her uncanny ability to illuminate our world through characters and
situations that feel at once peculiar and foreign and disturbingly
familiar.
Virtually all American writers have their favorite Joy Williams stories,
as do many readers of all ages, and each one of them is available here.