Ninety-nine stories of God
By: Joy Williams
Publisher: Tin House Books
Published: 2016
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781941040355
Subjects: Short stories
Other titles: 99 stories of God
Work titles: Short stories
Description: Seldom occupying more than a couple of pages, Williams' stories are headed by a number, one to 99, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist has a one-of-a-kind gift for capturing both the absurdity and the darkness of everyday life. In Ninety-Nine Stories of God,  she takes on one of mankind's most confounding preoccupations: the Supreme Being.This series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It's the Book of Common Prayer as seen through a looking glass--a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams' characters, however, are like the rest of us: anonymous strivers and bumblers who brush up against God in the least expected places or go searching for him when he's standing right there. The Lord shows up at a hot-dog-eating contest, a demolition derby, a formal gala, and a drugstore, where he's in line to get a shingles vaccination.At turns comic and yearning, lyric and aphoristic, Ninety-Nine Stories of God serves as a pure distillation of one of our great artists.
Table of contents: title: Postcard --; title: Noche --; title: Aubade --; title: Cavity --; title: Nevertheless --; title: See that you remember --; title: Not his best --; title: Hedgehog --; title: Clean --; title: Wet --; title: Arrangement --; title: No --; title: Moms --; title: Cozy --; title: Story --; title: If picked or uprooted these beautiful flowers will disappear --; title: Dresser --; title: This is not a maze --; title: Perhaps a kind of cake? --; title: This time --; title: Coat --; title: Some difference --; title: And you are... ; title: Nid duw ond dim (without God there is nothing) --; title: Veracity --; title: Satisfaction --; title: A good reason --; title: Abandon all hope --; title: Ignorance --; title: Satan's leathery wing --; title: Society --; title: Shaken --; title: Irreducible --; title: Tragedy has obligations --; title: Just a rumor --; title: Dearest --; title: The brain --; title: Actually --; title: Buried in Colorado all alone --; title: Señor Xólotl --; title: Jail --; title: Pretty much the same, then --; title: Her eyes were set rather close together which gave her an urgent air --; title: The individualist --; title: Numbers --; title: Preference --; title: Get out as early as you can --; title: Participation --; title: Naked mind --; title: Buick Lesabre --; title: Significance --; title: Doll house --; title: Peggy --; title: Divine --; title: Neglect --; title: Giraffe --; title: Dew --; title: Sartre to Camus --; title: Looking good --; title: Party --; title: Museum --; title: Essential enough --; title: Apropos of nothing --; title: I pity the fool --; title: Dull --; title: Rebirth --; title: Forgiveness --; title: ) ( --; title: Inoculum --; title: Driveshaft --; title: Fog --; title: Whale --; title: A little prayer --; title: Walk-in --; title: Transition --; title: Whatever is happening? --; title: Elephants never forget God --; title: The fourth wife --; title: Example --; title: Opportunity --; title: Businesswoman --; title: Polyurethane --; title: Crazy injuns --; title: Winter --; title: Early practice --; title: Infidelity --; title: Plot --; title: A flawed opinion --; title: Phew --; title: Compline --; title: This is the way that night passes by --; title: Dostomctopm --; title: Fathers and sons --; title: If you feel you must --; title: Sibling --; title: Plenary --; title: Bread --; title: A new arrangement --; title: The darkling thrush.