'The writer who saved my life - or my soul.'Merve Emre,The New Yorker
'A true living hero of the American avant-garde.'Jonathan Franzen
'One of the very few contemporary prose writers who seem to be doing something independent,energetic,heartfelt.'Lydia Davis
A new collection of stories from the'godmother of flash fiction'(The Paris Review).
In Williams'stories,life is newly alive and dangerous; whether she is writing about an affair,a request for money,an afternoon in a garden,or the simple act of carrying a cake from one room to the next,she offers us beautiful and unsettling new ways of seeing everyday life.
In perfectly honed sentences,with a sly and occasionally wild wit,Williams shows us how any moment of any day can open onto disappointment,pleasure,and possibility.
Publisher: Scribe PublicationsISBN: 9781915590589Dimensions: 210 x 135 x 10 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'(Williams) writes an unmistakable type of story: short,tightly wrought,each sentence a small masterpiece - a three-act play in miniature...With flying narrators and women whose hair drags on the floor as they walk,there's something of Leonora Carrington's visions about the stories.'
'As proved by I Hear You're Rich,Diane Williams's fiction,long beloved by those in the know,is joyful,unnerving,and linguistically spry.'
'Williams explores the pleasures and disappointments of adulthood in this distinctive collection...Williams'blend of precision and understatement make her insights on her characters'fears and limitations cut deeply while leaving the stories open to interpretation. This will leave readers aching in all the best ways.'
'Miniscule stories from a master of the form...It's nearly impossible to categorise Williams'work. She interrogates both the mundane and the metaphysical. In story after story,she upends what readers have grown to expect from traditional narratives - a beginning,middle,and end,to say the least - sometimes leaving us without any of those elements at all. A Williams story might be made up of a fragment of dialogue,a thought,a description,or some combination of these...Mysterious,gemlike,and strange.'
'You can always count on Diane Williams,head literary weirdo and "godmother of flash fiction"for a good time - if you consider having your mind blown to be a good time,which you should. Her latest book has 33 short pieces guaranteed to shift the world around you,if only for a moment.'
'Spry,sly,and spirited,Williams'very short stories - most are a couple of pages long - are brilliantly unsettling...Williams'clean sentences are uncluttered,but strangely surprising,and the stories themselves have mysterious depths,a teasing sense of meaning and connection that can never be quite explained or articulated.'
'How much can one writer do with how little Williams is so intelligent,fearless,and tough,she does extraordinary things within the constraints of her own stringent rules.'
'Every event,thought,image,phrase,and word are given equal opportunity to claim or elude your attention. Turn the pages and see what stands out to you. You might be surprised.'
'Williams delights...What a treat! Life is rendered immediate and fresh through her eyes as she takes on the simplest of subjects - affairs,a request for money,the act of carrying a cake - with precision and gusto.'
'Mesmerising.'
'These 33 stories,a few as short as a paragraph,pack inordinate complexity into tiny spaces and take unpredictable turns toward unexpected conclusions...From the elusiveness of love to the desire for escape,the themes here are hard to mine in flash fiction. That Williams does so is a tribute to her talent.'
Praise for The Collected Stories of Diane Williams:
'Full of funny,libidinal,and invigorating enigmas...Readers who love the arresting phrase,the surprising word,will gravitate to her...It's perfect to leave on the bedside table,to be consulted before one's dreamlife begins.'
Praise for The Collected Stories of Diane Williams:
'Erudite,elegant,and stubbornly experimental. For any writer,an omnibus collection is a triumph. To see years of Ms Williams'confounding fictions collected in so hefty a volume is like seeing snowflakes accrue into an avalanche.'
Praise for How High - That High:
'Williams is a magician of the miniature...Don't let their diminutive stature fool you: these pieces pack a punch. Brief,elliptical,steeped in longing - or is that lust - they offer slices of life that rely on interior more than exterior details,which is to say they are small road maps of the soul...All the pieces here...are rigorous in both language and emotion,using nuance and inference to explore the implications,the contradictions,that people rarely share aloud...Williams'small gems are as dense and beautiful as diamonds,compressed from the carbon of daily life.'
Praise for How High - That High:
'Williams returns with a collection showcasing her mastery of succinct and suggestive stories...Williams'prose evokes both strangeness and familiarity as she gets at the core of what it means to live into one's later years. This is by no means for everyone,but it will surely satisfy fans of well-wrought fiction.'
Praise for Diane Williams:
'I would describe Williams as the writer who saved my life - or my soul,if one believes such a thing exists...(Williams') stories,many no longer than a page,suggest that what is left unsaid between people remains more powerful than what they have the capacity to articulate. Although Williams studied with Gordon Lish (and before that,with Philip Roth),her minimalism is distinctive for its sublimity and its spirituality,its ability to evoke the laws of a world apart.'
Praise for Diane Williams:
'Williams can do more with two sentences than most writers can do with two hundred pages.'
Praise for Diane Williams:
'Not a single moment of the prose,here,is what youexpect,and even the ordinary is,in the context created by Diane Williams,no longer ordinary: it is fresh,happy,and peculiar - or is it we who are refreshed,happy,and more peculiar than before after reading her'
Praise for Diane Williams:
'This book will rewire your brain.'
Kommentar