LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD A razor-sharp new collection of stories of visionary childhood misfits and struggling adult dreamers from this legendary writer of "perfectly indescribable fiction . . . To read Williams is to look into the abyss" (The Atlantic). The sentences of Joy Williams are like no other-the coiled wit, the sense of a confused and ruined landscape, even the slight chortle of hope that lurks between the words-for the scrupulous effort of telling, in these eleven stories, has a ravishing beauty that belies their substance... All of these characters insist on exploring, often at their peril, an indifferent and caustic world: they struggle against our degradation of the climate, of each other, and of honest human experience ("I try to relate only to what is immediately verifiable," says one narrator ruefully), possibly in vain. But each brief, haunted triumph of understanding is celebrated by Williams, a writer for our time and all time.