Chances are good that you’ve never heard of John Williams the author; no, when you think of John Williams you think of the award-winning film score composer. The John Williams I’m speaking of is the National Book Award-winning writer, author of Augustus (NBA 1973), Stoner (our topic of discussion), and others. Williams was director of the creative writing program at the University of Denver for over 30 years. He died in 1994 of respiratory failure.

I just today finished reading Stoner and it’s a shame the book isn’t more well-known. Ultimately, John Williams presents us with a story of futility; William Stoner is an English professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, a man whose inability to act, his search for personal enlightenment through his studies, and his fear of life outside of academia keep him running in place until his uneventful death. It is a heartbreaking story and often I had to put the book down as I just couldn’t bear to see Stoner let another person walk over him. But the story itself is so compelling, told in such an uncomplicated and frank tone, and the psychology of a man confined is so well displayed, I would quickly pick the book back up and consume more of Williams’ tale.

I purchased this book without recommendation; I was recently turned onto the New York Review of Books Classics series by a friend’s suggestion of Oakley Hall’s Warlock. I enjoyed Warlock so much that I had to have another book in the series and after a bit of research, Stoner seemed right for me. As a writer of literary fiction myself, compelled to write in the rarely-evoked genre of midwestern gothic, Stoner appeared to fit into my search of the greatest midwestern gothic novels out there. The novel demonstrates the life and death of an academic in the midwest; I couldn’t ask for anything greater. It is a simple story but it contains so much human toil, living a life where almost every person and every thing encountered feels pitted against you, and even though Stoner feels downright pathetic at times, your empathy will never wane.

If anybody ever lets me loose in front of a classroom, John Williams’ Stoner will certainly be on my reading list.