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Here are articles from and calling this the Greatest American Novel You've Never Heard Of. (Both articles contain at least minor spoilers for the book.) So, over the past few years Stoner has become the novel to bring up when you want to show that you're on the cutting edge of classic lit. Unfortunately it's not that great.

It starts with a bang, as Williams basically announces, "I am about to tell an unexceptional story!" Fun gambit. Like how in the olden days books would start with "Here is the exceptional tale of a man who does crazy things, and his wanderings throughout the Known Worlde, and his Varied Minglings with Anciente Tribes both Sauvage and Civilizede," whoops I'm getting carried away but anyway, Williams does the opposite of that. I dug both the beginning and ending of this book. All the pages in between: somewhat more problematic.

Let's talk about Edith, can we? (view spoiler)[What the fuck, guys? She's a two-dimensional shrew! At one point Stoner will say that the failure of their marriage is on both of them, but I'm not seeing that; what I see written is that he's heroically stoic and she's awful, and it doesn't sit well with me at all. (hide spoiler)] Updike, writing at about the same time, does (for my money) a much better job of showing how both parties can contribute to a shitty marriage. Stoner reminds me more of Fahrenheit 451; Guy Montag's wife Millie is a similarly one-note villain.

And then there's Katherine...(view spoiler)[Oh hey check it out, I'm a dude in my 40s who wrote a book about a dude in his 40s who this hot young lady falls madly in love with him and they find True Love, everything his shitty marriage to a terrible woman isn't! (hide spoiler)] Gosh, I sure haven't read anything like that before. Novel! Williams is aware that he's writing a cliche and responds to it directly: “but the longer he looked, the less familiar it became. It was not himself that he saw, and he knew suddenly that it was no one,� as Stoner specifically compares himself to an asshole having a mid-life crisis and insists that his is special. But just because you specifically say you're not doing it, doesn't mean you're not doing it.

I had a lot of trouble with this book's portrayal of women, and also with its portrayal of almost everyone else, including much of its quixotic hero. You could argue about how much Williams saw him as a hero at all, but he called him a hero in an interview, so...if the author gives us a limited perspective, like Williams is maybe doing with Stoner, it's incumbent on him to give us enough clues in the text that we can guess what's really going on. Here, there are no clues; we're shown Edith's general unhappiness and unpleasantness, but no other perspective is hinted at. So here we all are trying to make excuses either for Stoner or for Williams himself - but the simplest answer is just that Williams is not great with the ladies, and that's the one I'm sticking with.

There were some great parts here; I'm inclined to agree with those who place (view spoiler)[Stoner's death as one of the most eloquent in literature, (hide spoiler)] and I really liked the simple, clear style of writing Williams has. But I'm not comfortable with Edith or Katherine, and I don't think this is a great novel. I think it's just a good one.