State of Grace

This novel is truly a find. I echo the below review: how can such an unassuming piece of genius sit and languish on the shelf for so many years without ever garnering the readership it deserves? Suffice to say, State of Grace is like no other novel I've ever read, and I'm a PhD student in literature. It is lyrical and baffling, insightful and obscure. Perhaps the best corollary I can think of is Marilynne Robinson-- if Robinson surrendered herself to her ecstatic, mystic impulses. The story of a precious young woman and her will-less surge through the world is something to curl up with and devour. Treat yourself. Read it.

I picked up this book quite by accident, having been recommended to another Williams, or, perhaps, another Joy. Frustrated, I glanced at the first page, and, finding it not repellent, read a bit more. The next thing I knew, I was immersed in something extraordinary and rare. It's amazing--and depressing--that a book like this can exist, no longer heralded, buried on a shelf in a bookstore where a handful of people might discover it by accident. About the book there is little to say that can adequately describe what it's like, except that it's like plunging into the soul of a very particular young woman.

One of my all time favorites! I've written graduate essays on the book and always list it as being a major influence on my own writing. Joy Williams is one of the few authors who can describe the world's craziness and how we live in it.