Though Stoner has proven to be a novel whose compassionate themes have timeless appeal, this portrait of the irksome...
A biography of a nearly forgotten mid-20th-century American writer.
A notable literary sensation of recent years is the belated success of the 1965 novel Stoner. This quietly intense story of an English professor at a small Midwestern college was the third of only four published novels by author John Williams (1922-1994). Though the book was favorably reviewed, it sold poorly. But thanks to the efforts of devoted readers and fellow writers, the book has slowly gained a cult following, which led to a reprint in 2006. The larger success was established first through foreign editions before gaining recognition in the U.S. Literary biographer Shields (Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee: From Scout to Go Set a Watchman, 2016, etc.) provides a respectful and well-documented yet occasionally lackluster overview of Williams’ life and career. Beginning with his subject’s humble origins in northeast Texas, Shields tracks his experiences in the Army during World War II, early academic and writing pursuits, and then his 30-year tenure as a professor at the University of Denver, where he also served as the director of their creative writing program. Along the way, we see glimpses of Williams’ personal life, but what ultimately emerges is a fairly predictable portrait of yet another heavy-drinking, chain-smoking postwar American white male writer. He sustained a focused eye on his craft but apparently had limited interest in his students or family, and his continual and often desperate ambition for fame somewhat diminished his reputation within his department. His disdain for modernist and experimental writing and his reluctance to reflect directly on his times also left him out of sync with reading interests of that period, including the more provocative work of contemporaries ranging from Norman Mailer to John Barth.
Though Stoner has proven to be a novel whose compassionate themes have timeless appeal, this portrait of the irksome Williams, though brisk and readable, may do little to further advance the book’s cause.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4773-1736-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Univ. of Texas
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
