Contributions

  • John McGahern - Introduction

Publication

2006 - New York Review Books, New York, New York (State)

Language

English

Word Count

69,500 words, Guess

Page Count

278 pages

Physical Format

Paperback

Identifiers

  • Internet Archivestonernovel0000will
  • ISBN-101590171993
  • ISBN-139781590171998
  • HathiTrust005263184
  • Goodreads58466277
and 3 more

Classifications

  • DDC813/.54
  • LCCPS3545.I5286 S7 2003

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, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, 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’s 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.

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, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, 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’s 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. --back cover

Subjects

Genres

  • Fiction

Series Statement

  • New York Review Books classics

Links

Other Editions

  • StonerPaperbackNew York Review Books2006-01-01
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