Synopses & Reviews
Diane Williams, “godmother of flash fiction” (The Paris Review), returns with 33 short, brilliant stories.
In Williams’ stories, life is newly alive and dangerous; whether she is writing about an affair, a request for money, an afternoon in a garden, or the simple act of carrying a cake from one room to the next, she offers us beautiful and unsettling new ways of seeing everyday life. In perfectly honed sentences, with a sly and occasionally wild wit, Williams shows us how any moment of any day can open onto disappointment, pleasure, and possibility.
Review
“Reading each tale in Diane Williams’s I Hear You're Rich feels like looking into the deep, expressive eyes of a person who doesn’t speak much: A great deal is left unsaid... We can never know the full story; we can only ever get a glimpse. Layered together, these glimpses result in a haunting feeling, telling us less about the world and far more about the eyes through which we are seeing it.” The New York Times Book Review
Review
“You might call Diane Williams’s plots dreamlike — they proceed according to their own mysterious logic, interrupting themselves — but they’re not hazy... [Williams] turn[s] the everyday stuff of realist fiction into props for existential fun houses... I Hear You’re Rich will please fans of Lydia Davis and David Lynch.” Vulture
Review
“It’s nearly impossible to categorize Williams’ work... In story after story, she upends what readers have grown to expect from traditional narratives — a beginning, middle, and end, to say the least — sometimes leaving us without any of those elements at all. A Williams story might be made up of a fragment of dialogue, a thought, a description, or some combination of these... Mysterious, gemlike, and strange.” Kirkus Reviews
Review
“These 33 stories, a few as short as a paragraph, pack inordinate complexity into tiny spaces and take unpredictable turns toward unexpected conclusions... From the elusiveness of love to the desire for escape, the themes here are hard to mine in flash fiction. That Williams does so is a tribute to her talent.” Shelf Awareness (starred review)
About the Author
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 eleven volumes of short fiction. She lives in New York City.