Description

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"Glittering. . . . filled with humor, canny allusion, beauty.”—The New Yorker

“Quite possibly America's best living writer of short stories.”—NPR



“Williams is a writer for our times: both visionary and caustic, knowing yet also full of wonder.”—Catherine Taylor, The Financial Times

Returning to her legendary short stories, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Joy Williams offers a much-anticipated follow-up to Ninety-Nine Stories of God, which The New York Times Book Review called a “treasure trove of bafflements and tiny masterpieces.” 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 such as Jung, Nietzsche, Pythagoras, Bach, and Rilke; to mountains, oceans, dogs, birds, whales, horses, butterflies, a sixty-year-old tortoise, and a chimp named Washoe—experience the varying fate of the soul as each encounters the darkness of transcendence in this era of extinction. A brilliant crash course in philosophy, religion, literature, and culture, Concerning the Future of Souls is an absolution and an indictment, sorrowful and ecstatic. Williams will leave you wonderstruck, pondering the morality of being mortal.

About the Author

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Joy Williams is the author of five novels, including The Quick and the Dead and most recently Harrow, five collections of stories, including Ninety-Nine Stories of God, 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.

Praise For…

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Glittering. . . . filled with humor, canny allusion, beauty.
— The New Yorker

Joy Williams distills much learning — from philosophy, religion and history — into 99 stories about the guy who takes your soul.. . .[she] resembles Mark Twain in the wildcat nature of her literary scorn. . . . .[and] writes with more feeling about nature than any writer I know.
— The New York Times

A singular collection of microfiction that distills the strange into a pure concentrate, showcasing the essence of her unique voice.
— Chicago Review of Books, A Best Book of July

I want to say that if you banged a [Marilynne] Robinson novel off one by Cormac McCarthy, the sparks that flew would be something like Williams, except that neither of those writers does funny and Williams is the kind of funny you can’t explain…. This is a book completed, after many other good books, by a master of the craft. Prepare to be moved.
— Anne Enright, The Guardian (UK)

In reading this book, one has the feeling of brief but warm encounters with thousands of souls. As Williams eliminates the boundary between fiction and reality, her stories become even more evocative.
— The Los Angeles Review

Enchanting. . . . lyrical. . . . glimmering. . . . Elegantly poetic—and often archly funny—meditations on death by a superb writer.
— Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

Resonant. . . . these pieces riddle the reader’s mind with their exquisite enigmas. Williams continues to astonish.
— Publishers Weekly

She’s the story writer of our time, choosing to shine light on the wreckage and the difficult choices that lay ahead: all we have to do is listen.
— LitHub, A Most Anticipated Book of 2024

Impressive. . . . beguiling. . . . fascinating. . . . This is a book to linger over, with more questions than answers, and it is sure to be lauded for its intellectual breadth and masterful control.
— Shelf Awareness

A strangely beautiful kaleidoscope, refracting the question of what it means to be human into ninety-nine bejeweled rays.
— The Masters Review

A kind of offhanded brilliance. . . .She is making of the language something new and entirely her own.
— Alta Journal

In the end, Williams wants her readers to laugh, but also to seriously consider what is happening to this one planet we share.
— On the Seawall

Strikingly singular.
— Washington Independent Review of Books

Among parables, protestations, and observations, Williams weaves a rousing mythology.
— New York Journal of Books

Further irrefutable proof of Williams’s nonpareil genius.
— Brooklyn Rail