The author of Stoner delivers something completely different but equally unique, skewering romantic notions of the Wild West with a brilliant, brutal tale of buffalo hunters that reverberates with understated power.
The author of Stoner delivers something completely different but equally unique, skewering romantic notions of the Wild West with a brilliant, brutal tale of buffalo hunters that reverberates with understated power.
John Williams was an author, editor and professor. Born in 1922 in Texas, he served in the United States Army Air Force from 1942 to 1945 in China, Burma and India. His first novel, Nothing But the Night, was published in 1948. After receiving his PhD in 1954, Williams returned to the University of Denver where he first studied to teach literature and creative writing for thirty years. It was during this time that he wrote the novels Butcher's Crossing (1960) and Stoner (1965). His last novel, Augustus, won the National Book Award in 1973. John Williams died in Arkansas in 1994.
His Stoner is the book that has garnered the attention, but I
prefer this earlier take on the Western genre…it has some gory,
visceral passages that are not for the faint-hearted
*Irish Times*
Shorn of sentimentality or decoration, the events and places
[Williams] describes begin to feel inescapable, permanent, and
rivetingly dramatic. This is language that seems to be carved into
stone – into mountains... Stoner showed us a writer who had written
a great book. To those of us who didn't know already, Butcher's
Crossing reveals John Williams to be more than that: forgotten
writer as he was, he was unquestionably also a great one
*Independent*
Superbly understated
*Herald*
One of the finest books about the elusive nature of the West ever
written… It’s a graceful and brutal story of isolated men gone
haywire
*Time Out*
Harsh and relentless yet muted in tone, Butcher’s Crossing paved
the way for Cormac McCarthy
*New York Times Book Review*
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