{"product_id":"ninetynine-stories-of-god-isbn-9781941040355","title":"Ninety-Nine Stories of God","description":"\u003cb\u003ePulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Joy Williams\u003c\/b\u003e has a one-of-a-kind gift for capturing both the absurdity and the darkness of everyday life. In \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e, she takes on one of mankind’s most confounding preoccupations: the Supreme Being.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nThis series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It’s the \u003ci\u003eBook of Common Prayer\u003c\/i\u003e as seen through a looking glass—a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams’s characters, however, are like the rest of us: anonymous strivers and bumblers who brush up against God in the least expected places or go searching for Him when He’s standing right there. The Lord shows up at a hot-dog-eating contest, a demolition derby, a formal gala, and a drugstore, where he’s in line to get a shingles vaccination. At turns comic and yearning, lyric and aphoristic, Ninety-Nine Stories of God serves as a pure distillation of one of our great artists.\n\"Wry and playful, except for when densely allusive and willfully obtuse, \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e is a treasure trove of bafflements and tiny masterpieces.\"—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e:[The stories in \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e] miniaturize the qualities found in Joy Williams’s celebrated short stories: concision, jumped connections, singular details, brutal humor. I say “celebrated” because Williams has been writing stories for forty years, and for forty years her literary peers—from Ann Beattie to Raymond Carver, from James Salter to Don DeLillo—have regarded her work with a kind of Masonic fellow-feeling. Yet she remains, in some ways, a difficult, and certainly an original, writer. She writes at a slight angle to the culture, literary and otherwise. Her fiction is easy to follow and hard to fathom; easy to enjoy and harder to absorb.\" —\u003cb\u003eJames Wood, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Q]uietly splendid. . . . I believe in art, and \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e feels like prayer to me.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not many writers can launch a premise like “The Lord was in line at the pharmacy counter waiting to get His shingles shot” without falling into gimmickry, but Williams—long known as a master story writer—twists the scenario to an eerily moving effect. In manipulating our most deeply rooted expectations, shooting them through a prism of irony and wonder, she has created a cockeyed book of common prayer.\"—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Baffling and illuminating, witty and disturbing, these 99 religious-flavored vignettes may not tell you why we are here or where we are going, but they do possess the power to entrance. The divine Joy Williams continues to work in mysterious ways.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Minnesota Star Tribune,\u003c\/i\u003e Best Fiction of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Sly and wonderful. . . . [Williams is] after some big truths in a few words, stories so short that some of them could fit on Twitter, except they're too smart and not mean enough.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A collection of fiction for our fractured times from a modern master — funny, profound and redemptive.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e, Best Books of 2016\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Williams says more in a page-long scene than most can say in a chapter; it's fitting, then, that her very short collection manages to encompass such an eternal theme with wit and grace.\" —\u003cb\u003eHuffington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Williams] is ... a master of momentum; the stories in \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e end and snap, end and snap, their wit yanking you up and dressing you down right when you get a rhythm going.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Week\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Read together, Joy Williams’ stories are a humanist manifesto, a celebration of our most mysterious values, desires and prejudices\" —\u003cb\u003eHuffington Post, Best Fiction of 2016\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Williams addicts will mainline [\u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e]; newcomers should chase the high with last year’s \u003ci\u003eThe Visiting Privilege\u003c\/i\u003e.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"While Marilynn Robinson (stately, assured) is so often held up as the major Christian believer in American letters, I would argue that, along with Annie Dillard, Joy Williams is the true seeker. Her stories are probes sent out into the universe.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eOxford American\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Masterly . . . Ms. Williams is her usual funny, irreverent self.\"—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Joy Williams is one of America's greatest living writers\u003cb\u003e.\"\u003c\/b\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eVICE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Joy Williams is our contemporary O'Connor with a mix of Protestant sacraments . . . and a Zen Koan consciousness.\" —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Los Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Every Joy Williams publication is a cause for celebration, and \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e shows Williams in her usual biting, insightful, and darkly humorous form.\" —\u003cb\u003eElectric Literature, Best Short Story Collections of 2016\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Each story is beautifully strange and meditative in an unexpected but glorious way. . . . Inarguably inspired, \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e is a devotional for modern cynics and believers alike.\" —\u003cb\u003eLenny Letter\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Ninety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e is gorgeously written, sentence-to-sentence, and arrives in vignettes that are condensed but not constrained, tight but not dry.\" —\u003cb\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Weirdly soothing . . . The best approach is to read \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e all in one shot, and then dip in randomly thereafter, at your darkest and dimmest hour, finding solace.\" —\u003cb\u003eThe Ringer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Each story in this collection shoots like a flare over the abyss of our existential dilemma, flashing the briefest light on the depths below and above.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEugene Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Magnificent, imaginative, and moving.\"—\u003cb\u003eRead It Forward\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Much like the divine, Williams’ prose is simple and brutal, thoughtful and haunting. A spare but startling book.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e, STARRED REVIEW\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Admirers of Williams—and anyone who treasures a story well told should be one—will find much to like here.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, STARRED REVIEW\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The most beguiling book of the summer is this little collection of 99 very short stories about God. The catch is that the brilliantly twisted Joy Williams is behind the stories, which means the Lord finds himself at a hotdog-eating contest or in line for a shingles vaccination. Mayhem, humor, and death mark this transcendent book\u003cb\u003e.\"\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e—Publishers Weekly,\u003c\/i\u003e Best Books of Summer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[T]hese stories are 100% Williams: funny, unsettling, and mysterious, to be puzzled over and enjoyed across multiple readings.\"—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, STARRED REVIEW\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I would follow the trail of Joy Williams’s words—always beautiful, compelling, and so wise—anywhere they led.\"—\u003cb\u003eChuck Palahniuk, author of CHOKE and FIGHT CLUB\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"These modern fables and skewed vignettes make the implausible plausible. Compression, as done by Joy Williams, extends the reach of her stories.\"—\u003cb\u003eAmy Hempel, author of AT THE GATES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Each story, like living tissue, is a reliquary that makes something splendid of our most secret agonies and desires.\"—\u003cb\u003eDarcey Steinke, author of SISTER GOLDEN HAIR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"These stories are as full of surprises as a Noah’s Ark filled with mystical beasts, three of each.\"—\u003cb\u003eEdmund White, author of A BOY'S OWN STORY\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Joy Williams’s \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e reads like a blog-era bible as conceived by Borges, Barthelme, and Mark Twain. No writer alive captures the voices in the post-millennial psychic wilderness like Joy Williams.\"—\u003cb\u003eJerry Stahl, author of PERMANENT MIDNIGHT\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The word count of this slender, extraordinary collection belies the density and combustibility of its contents, their midnight hilarity and edgeless reach. Joy Williams is our feral philosopher.\"—\u003cb\u003eKaren Russell, author of VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJoy Williams\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of five novels, including \u003ci\u003eThe Quick and the Dead\u003c\/i\u003e and most recently \u003ci\u003eHarrow\u003c\/i\u003e, five collections of stories, including \u003ci\u003eConcerning the Future of Souls\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eNinety-Nine Stories of God\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as \u003ci\u003eIll Nature\u003c\/i\u003e, a book of essays that was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Among her many honors are the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, the Paris Review’s Hadada Award, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, to which she was elected in 2008. She lives in Arizona and Wyoming.","brand":"Tin House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233434939621,"sku":"NP9781941040355","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781941040355.jpg?v=1767733763","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/ninetynine-stories-of-god-isbn-9781941040355","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}