My pre-ordered copy just arrived. Notwithstanding how wonderful the stories are, the book itself is a lovely thing - nice thick paper with those rough edges, and the dust jacket has a great rough texture to it. 13 of the stories are new to me, and I plan to read them slowly as a treat in between my other books. The rest are probably due a re-read but, seeing she is the best living short story writer, I can give this five stars simple on principle. If you have not read her yet, this is a great pl...

I think all the miserable people living in the eastern half of the United States also live in the short stories in this book.

In the very first story in this book, there’s an abandoned dog, delivered along with an abandoned baby into the care of a tired grandfather who is already caring for his ailing wife. That remarkable story sets the tone for the entire collection—I've never read so many powerful stories about the lost, the sick, the exhausted, the forgotten, the miserable, the dying. And that’s just the dogs.Dogs feature in almost all of the forty-something stories, and since the collection is dedicated to Rust, w...

it's come - just in time for Christmas, A present to myself.. and one that looks great.I tried very hard to slow down reading this book because it is so wonderful. I managed 6 months. Now I'll start again. Truly exceptional.

Both this and the Lucia Berlin collection are absolutely indispensable for those who love short fiction, and those who want to but don't quite. Plus very few writers can get away with so much hyperbole. And here it always works.***I re-read a few of these over the weekend. They were all brilliant, truly brilliant (not 'brilliant' as in, 'Yeah, that was great again,' but seriously brilliant as in 'Oh my days, Joy Williams is doing something nobody else can here, and it's spectacular') but The Exc...

"We are here to prepare for not being here." (The Country.)Can we incorporate and treasure and be nourished by that which we do not understand? Of course. Understanding something, especially in these tech times, seems to involve ruthless appropriation and dismantlement and diminishment.Joy Williams in The Paris ReviewThe Bible is constantly making use of image beyond words. A parable provides the imagery by means of words. The meaning, however, does not lie in the words but in the imagery. What

This collection is massive but there's so little filler. My dislike of short stories is overridden by Williams' careful construction of off-kilter lives distorted by a disquieting undercurrent.

Though not every short story in here is excellent or even terribly memorable, Joy Williams' prose is unmatched. It's amazing that if not for David Sedaris, I never would have heard of her.

Her prose is so good. The older, collected stories were much better than the new ones.

In a weird distinction, I thought the stories in this collection were really well done, but didn't enjoy the experience of reading it. I think because it was a library book, and I felt a certain pressure to soldier through it, when I would have really liked to read one or two at a time and put the book down for a bit to absorb them. Each one was so dense and unsettling–like eating a flourless chocolate cake, but more depressing. Still, glad I read it, and thinking maybe I'll revisit some of the

There is a good chance you don't know this, but Joy Williams is a genius. I myself was not aware of this until a couple years ago, when she was recommended to me by Paul Lisicky (PS - He's wonderful, Google him.). Williams is a writer's writer, which I think means "brilliant and under the radar." In this new collection of stories, you can glimpse her brilliance in forty-six (!!!) stories, both old and new. Her writing is elegant and dark, fantastical and sharp. She's soooo good. Think Alice Munr...

I want to use the phrase "towering talent," despite it being both a cliche and rather phallocentric. These stories are...devastating. Obliterating. Freaking genius. DAMN.

There are thirteen 'new' stories in this collection, along with 33 others culled from previous books. As I had never read any Joy Williams until now, all 46 stories were 'new' to me. I read each one; not in order, of course. And they were spectacular.The stories are minimalist, mostly, so easy to inhale. They are set in Maine, in Arizona, in Florida a lot, and in unnamed pockets of America, where photographs fade, drywall rots, and floral dresses bear the stains of yesterday. The weather informs...

Pulitzer in 2016, or I self-immolate.

Realistically I may never finish this book, but I'm going to give it five stars because every story in here makes me want to be more thoughtful, more observant, smarter and better, so I can be more like Joy Williams. Also every story has a dog, it's fantastic. Joy Williams is so cool it kills me.

‘The Visiting Privilege’ is a collection of old and new stories and probably not the best possible collection. I enjoyed individual stories, but the whole thing became quite repetitive. Sometimes less is better and more is too much. Great writer to read in short bursts. Positive review, but no more than that.

A nearly flawless collection. I try to use superlatives sparingly in reviews but Joy Williams is really one of America’s greatest living short story writers. Many of these were rereads for me, but they were all just as enjoyable this time around, if not more so. I did find that I was slightly less enamored of the new stories here (mostly from the last decade), though they were all still above average. A couple of them seemed out of her usual wheelhouse, and others were even more explicitly fixat...

Though I haven't read it, I have to imagine September's big cover story in the NYT Magazine section has to do with how Joy Williams went from being perhaps THE great, unappreciated American author of the last thirty years to this ruminative, death-obsessed drunk who has pushed the boundaries of her signature style past any point of necessity. Five stars for the selections from her past collections, zero for everything new (Maybe three for the story about the desert tortoise sanctuary, but it's n...

Joy Williams appears to be one of the most accomplished short story writers I never heard of. The comparisons to giants such as Flannery O’Connor, Raymond Carver, Alice Munroe and Tobias Wolff really peaked my interest and I was not disappointed.There are many stories here – four dozen, to be precise – and I am savoring them. These little gems are not meant to be devoured one after the other, but I’ve read at least half of them and will continue to read consistently over the weeks ahead. For tho...

No one writes short stories better, except for Alice Munro. Williams is the master and crazy good! 13 new stories in this volume as well as a collection of great old favorites. You simply can't go wrong here.