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This biography by the New York Times best-selling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee traces the life of National Book Award-winning novelist John Williams, author of the cult classic novel Stoner.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Part I. Nothing But the Night
- Chapter One: He Comes from Texas
- Chapter Two: “Ho, Ho! Wasn’t I the Character Then?”
- Chapter Three: Rough Draft
- Chapter Four: Key West
- Chapter Five: Alan Swallow
- Chapter Six: Love
- Part II. Butcher’s Crossing
- Chapter Seven: The Winters Circle
- Chapter Eight: “Natural Liars Are the Best Writers”
- Chapter Nine: Butcher’s Crossing
- Chapter Ten: Fiasco
- Part III. Stoner
- Chapter Eleven: “It Was That Kind of World”
- Chapter Twelve: “The Williams Affair”
- Chapter Thirteen: Stoner
- Part IV. Augustus
- Chapter Fourteen: Bread Loaf and “Up on the Hill”
- Chapter Fifteen: The Good Guys
- Chapter Sixteen: “Long Life to the Emperor!”
- Part V. The Sleep of Reason
- Poem: “An Old Actor to His Audience”
- Chapter Seventeen: “How Can Such a Son of a Bitch Have Such Talent?”
- Chapter Eighteen: In Extremis
- Epilogue. John Williams Redux
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Works Consulted
- A John Williams Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Charles J. Shields is the author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, a New York Times bestseller, a Literary Guild Selection, and a Book-of-the-Month Club Alternate. His young adult biography of Harper Lee, I Am Scout, was chosen an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, and a Junior Literary Guild Selection. In 2011, Shields published And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life, a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year.
Summary
This biography by the New York Times best-selling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee traces the life of National Book Award-winning novelist John Williams, author of the cult classic novel Stoner.