Stoner
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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 scholarâs life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known.
Yet as the years pass, William Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a âproperâ 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 Williamsâ 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.
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John Williams (1922â1994) was an editor, professor, and author of several works, including two volumes of poetry and three novels, Butcherâs Crossing, Stoner, and the National Book Awardâwinning Augustus. He was born in Texas and received his PhD from the University of Missouri in the early 1950s, where he also was a professor. In 1955 he became the director of the University of Denverâs creative writing program, where he became the editor of the University of Denver Quarterly.
Robin Field is the AudioFile Earphones Awardâwinning narrator of numerous audiobooks, as well as an award-winning actor, singer, writer, and lyricist whose career has spanned six decades. He has starred on and off Broadway, headlined at Carnegie Hall, authored numerous musical reviews, and hosted or performed on a number of television and radio programs over the years.
