I remember reading Stoner by John Williams about a decade ago, when it was republished here in the UK—almost forty years after its original publication in the USA. It had a huge impact on me. When Stoner was first published in 1965, it sold only two thousand copies and failed to gain wider recognition among readers. After going out of print, it was republished in the 1970s and again in the early 2000s, when it was translated into many languages and became a major bestseller, achieving almost cult status. Sadly, John Williams died in 1994 and never witnessed the enormous success of Stoner.
Many people struggle to articulate what makes this book so wonderful. Stoner is a compelling exploration of an individual life—simple, realistic, and filled with quiet existential meaning. The novel restores the memory of one ordinary man whom history has forgotten.
Stoner tells the story of a very ordinary man, William Stoner—not a hero, not a villain—the most human protagonist one could imagine. It is an honest portrayal of a man who made a sincere effort to live a life of integrity. His life might appear dull or unspectacular to some, yet within it lies the possibility of something decent and meaningful. Even when life is disappointing, there are still small moments of beauty to be found.
The novel follows the course of William Stoner’s life: his career as a university literature teacher, his strained relationship with his wife, Edith, his affair with his colleague Katherine, and his relationship with his daughter, Grace.
Stoner is diligent, hard-working, and completely devoted to his job—qualities that should earn appreciation from those around him, but in reality, no one seems to care.
The family dynamics—especially the interactions between Stoner, his wife Edith, and his daughter Grace—are marked by the mental health struggles Edith experiences early in their marriage. Stoner is deeply affected by his wife’s behaviour, which ultimately leads to the breakdown of their relationship and his affair with a younger colleague. This affair shows Stoner as a flawed but human character who makes choices that are painful for his family and profoundly affect his daughter as she grows up. It is a deeply humane portrayal of a man.
Towards the end of his life, Stoner reflects on his past and asks himself whether he could have done more—for his own happiness, for Edith, to have been more understanding, more loving, more caring. He also realises that his now adult daughter Grace, much like her mother, will likely never find happiness.
Stoner is a great teacher, but that’s all. He tries to live with dignity, and then he dies. He leaves no lasting mark on the world. No one remembers him. The novel reminds us that life is short, often banal, and that most of us will be forgotten soon after we cease to exist. Once our children, partners, and siblings are gone, any memory of us will disappear with them.
While reading John Williams’s Stoner, I often thought of Anita Brookner’s novels Falling Slowly and Latecomers, which also portray so-called “ordinary” lives. I was also reminded of The Rings of Saturn and The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald—the same veil of melancholy and delicate exploration of the human condition runs through them all. A wonderful companion to Stoner is An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine.