Stoner by John Williams
It's all Mr. Waggish's fault. Since the marvelous book publishing arm of the NY Review of Books reprinted John Williams's little-known novel Stoner , I've noticed mentions of the book here and there, and I had even picked it up a couple of times in bookstores. There was something mysteriously attractive about the cover (part of a Thomas Eakins painting ). But I always hesitated because the novel was praised for its realism, and because the central character is an unexceptional professor at the University of Missouri in the first half of the 20th century. (No, the book is not the sort that has a sequel called Pothead . It was published in 1965 and the central character's name is William Stoner.) The people praising the book, I figured, were probably the sorts of people who truly like books about unexceptional professors at midwestern universities. I am not that sort of person. But then Waggish wrote about it . Mr. Waggish has extraordinarily good taste, i...
