Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Biography, Literature & Literary studies

HOW HIGH? - THAT HIGH

Diane Williams

Stories

Diane Williams, an American master of the short story who will "rewire your brain" (NPR), is back with a collection in which she once again expands the possibilities of fiction.

The stories in HOW HIGH? - THAT HIGH depict ordinary moments - a visit to the doctor's office or a married couple's hundredth dance together - but within the quotidian, Williams delivers a lifetime of insecurities, lusts, rejections, and revelations, making her work equally discomfiting and amusing. With unmatched wit in every sentence, Williams captures whole universes in a story, delivering visionary insights into what it means to be human. Williams' devotees will be newly enthralled by her elegantly strange, bewitching stories in How High? - That High. Those who have yet to meet "the godmother of flash fiction" (The Paris Review) will find an extraordinary introduction in these pages. Diane Williams is the founder and editor of the distinguished literary annual, NOON, the archive of which, as well as Williams' personal literary archive, was acquired in 2014 by the Lilly Library. She is the author of nine previous volumes of short fiction and the recipient of four Pushcart Prizes. She lives in New York City.

Available products
Book Published 2021-10-12 by Soho Press

Comments

One of America's most exciting violators of habit.

Diane Williams probes the depths of human relationships in this humorous and sensitive collection of flash fiction. Reading Diane Williams' HOW HIGH?THAT HIGH is like when you're walking in the mall or down an aisle in the supermarket and you overhear an argument or a strange conversation. It's not polite to linger, yet you can't help but wonder what else was said and how it ended. Williams' short stories work much the same way, though instead of moving on because it's the polite thing to do, she gives just enough in a scant few pages that the reader lingers after the final sentence.... Read more...

Not a single moment of the prose, here, is what you expect, and even the ordinary is, in the context created by Diane Williams, no longer ordinary: it is fresh, happy and peculiar - or is it we who are refreshed, happy and more peculiar than before after reading her?

remarkable interview for The New Yorker Magazine: Williams can write startling things about sex, relationships, and family. But her real project is to test the limits of fiction itself... Read more...