Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Life, Well, Lived

Stoner by John Williams

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Right from the start author John Williams (who did not write the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme) lets you know that Stoner is not going to be a wild thrill ride. In perfunctory sentences he notes the year of William Stoner’s birth, his attendance at the University of Missouri and subsequent career as a professor there, and his death. He goes on to note how few people remember Stoner well. Those first few sentences are a story unto themselves but of course they’re not […]

William Stoner entered the University of Missouri as a freshman in 1910, at the age of nineteen.

Stoner by John Williams

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This is a reread from a few years ago, so part of my review will be reconsidering or readdressing my previous thoughts on this novel. This is the third novel by the writer John Williams, whose first two books Nothing but the Night and Butcher’s Crossing, I reviewed the other week. This book begins in 1910, as you can see from the opening line, as a farmer’s son enters into the University of Missouri to begin a course of study in the agriculture school, only to discover that he […]

The coach from Ellsworth to Butcher’s Crossing was a Dorothy that had been converted to carry passengers and small freight.

Butcher's Crossing by John Williams

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This is a reread of a novel I picked up a few years ago when everyone (including me) was rediscovering John Williams. Initially, while I liked this a lot, I didn’t like it as much as I liked his other novel Stoner. Rereading it has made the novel grow in my estimation and esteem. This truly is a great novel. We meet Andrews, fresh out of Harvard College, coming to Colorado for unclear personal reasons. He shows up in the town Butcher’s Crossing, introduces himself to […]

In this dream, where he was weightless and unalive, where he was a pervading mist of consciousness that seethed and trembled in a vast stretch of dark, there was at first no feeling…

Nothing but the Night by John Williams

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The first, and early, novel by the writer John Williams who would go on to write three very good books, two of them masterpieces. Because of Hoopla, I have access to the newly made (thanks to the republishing of his novel Stoner) audiobook editions of all his works, which I will likely be revisiting presently. This early novel is something different altogether. While there are stretches of his epistolary novel Augustus that are contemplative and reflective, there’s nothing quite this intimate or personal or claustrophobic in any […]

A Life

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There is plenty good about Stoner but the thing that really jumps out is author John Williams’ ability to write such a deep and emotionally engaging story about what can be considered a mostly ordinary life. The titular character begins life on a farm but the story quickly follows his progression to college life where he settles into comfortable surroundings, pursues a career as a lecturer and academic, marries and has a daughter. The novel practically canvases Stoner’s entire life in around 280 pages and not […]

You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school

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“Young folk […] they don’t know what to do with themselves.” A young man in the 1870’s drops out of Harvard and finds his way to Butcher’s crossing. He finds a reputable man who offers him a job managing the finances of the buffalo trade, but it’s not enough for Will Andrews. He tracks down a man named Miller who knows of a secret spot where there’s an untouched buffalo herd, ripe for the killing. All he needs is a little money. Andrews has that […]



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