Sally Alexander's Book Club

Return home to Holton!

Join Sally Colclough Alexander '51 and fellow alumnae for wine, cheese, and conversation!

For our winter meeting, we will be reading Stoner by John Williams.

Thursday, February 28, 2019

7:00 p.m.

Father's Club Lounge

Kindly RSVP to Development Associate for Special Events Allison James, 301.767.2389

Hello, All - I am in my second reading of Stoner, recommended to me by Judy White's daughter Susanna, and hoping many of you are in your first. I think I may have shared with you some words from the NY Times review when it came out in 1965 - "Stoner is something rarer than a great novel - it is a perfect novel." There are no postmodern gimmicks in this book. The voice - third person - is powerful yet unobtrusive, the story absorbing, the characters and setting real; the language rings clear, like crystal.

Here are a few critical comments from my Amazon copy, presented without attribution, to save time. "Stoner is .. . brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise, and elegant." "Stoner . . . caused buyers to call us in gratitude for having recommended it." (A New York bookseller) "Part of Stoner's greatness is that it sees life whole and as it is, without delusion yet without despair." "I don't think I've ever encountered a novelist in such complete control of his voice and characters." "There are some books you don't want to spoil with criticism. . . . You just want to exhort whoever is in front of you to go, read, discover the book's wonders first hand."

I'm exhorting you. I hope so much to see you on the 28th!

Sally