Joy Williams

"In her first novel since The Quick and the Dead, the legendary writer takes us into an uncertain landscape after the environmental apocalypse, a world in which only the man-made has value, but some still wish to salvage the authentic. Once nature as we know it is dead, the pursuit of happiness fades into insignificance, food is scarce, and even time doesn't progress in an organized fashion. Harrow follows the picaresque journey of Khristen--a teenager...

"Concerning the Future of Souls balances the extraordinary and the humble, the bizarre and the beatific, as Azrael-transporter of souls and the most troubled and thoughtful of the angels-confronts the holy impossibility of his task, his uneasy relationship with Death, and his friendship with the Devil. Over the course of these ninety-nine illuminations, a collection of connected and disparate beings -- ranging from ordinary folk to grand, known figures...

A posthumous collection of beloved and never-before-read stories from a titan of contemporary Southern fiction. "Here is a generous portion of the work of a swiftly passing lifetime. Bountiful is the deserving page," Joy Williams writes in her introduction to this astonishing selection of Brad Watson's published and unpublished stories: "excellent, assured, funny, startling, heartbreaking, wild," full of "freakish flair" and "melancholy realism"...

"Twenty contemporary authors introduce twenty sterling examples of the short story from the pages of The Paris Review"--Cover.