Williams may have crafted a novel that missed the reading public’s sweet spot, but contemporary heavyweights were bowled over by his handiwork. Williams, who chain-smoked and was said to have made a kick-ass bowl of “Texas Jailhouse Chili,” died of respiratory failure in 1994. In 1955 he took a job with the University of Denver’s creative writing program, which he directed until his retirement in 1985. in literature at the University of Missouri. He did a little writing in high school, but after flunking a literature class at a junior college in Wichita Falls he enlisted in the Army, served time in Burma, and returned to milk the GI Bill for all it was worth, eventually earning a Ph.D. “The plain style,” one of his friends called it.īorn in Clarksville, Williams grew up reading pulp fiction and listening to East Texas radio. Lack of attention was fine with Williams, who lived his life much as he wrote, with a kind of measured stability and unassuming demeanor. It sold 2,000 copies and brought little public recognition to its author, John Williams (whose most famous book, Augustus, won the National Book Award for fiction in 1973).

Published in 1965, the book chronicles the emotionally tumultuous life of a literature professor named William Stoner.

Let it be said now: Stoner has nothing to do with pot. Stoner may be the greatest novel ever written by a Texas-born writer you’ve likely never heard of.

Stoner by John Williams