Remembering Robert Stone: Joy Williams
"The Best and Hippest Writer in Key West."
I had a brain crush on Robert Stone. He could (and did) write about anything—voodoo, war, drugs, navigation, theater, diving, faith, Jerusalem. He could set up a scene and make it sinister in a Corinthian’s twinkling of an eye. In conversation the most esoteric subject might come up and Bob would give a little sniff, tip his head back slightly, almost close his eyes and . . . begin . . . an incomparable, mesmerizing knowledgeable riff. His work was dangerous, even menacing, but he was a sweetheart. And of course the best and hippest writer in Key West.
Tobias Wolff · Ann Beattie · Annie Dillard · Joyce Carol Oates ·
Bill Barich · Tom Grimes · Phyllis Rose · Ken Babbs ·
Tom Jenks · Edward Hower · Kem Nunn · Ed McClanahan ·
Elena Castedo · Robert D. Richardson · Hal Crowther · Carol Edgarian
Joy Williams
Joy Williams is the author of five novels, six collections of stories, including most recently Concerning the Nature of Souls, as well as Ill Nature, 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.
