joy williams (quotes, blurbs, interview)

most of these quotes i found from newspaper or magazine articles (via LexisNexis)

on crime novels

In serious fiction, one must remain aloof, playful, ironic; one mustn't really care. In the genre of the crime novel, the writer just has fun and makes money.

on nothingness

All art is about nothingness: our apprehension of it, our fear of it, its approach... [from Best American Short Stories 1995]

on reality

I believe you can only perceive reality, as such, very briefly. Otherwise it is very frightening for us.

on short stories

If you do believe that our perceptions of life are very limited, for the sake of our self-preservation, the short story form allows you to dwell on those instances.

on dialogue

"I used to be terrified of dialogue," Ms. Williams said in a recent telephone interview from a house she owns in Sarasota, Fla. "I was shy. I felt I didn't know people. Then, at some point, I realized you could make your characters say the most wonderful things."

"A window opens for a moment," Ms. Williams said of her characters, "and they are able to see and say things that they couldn't before. Then the window shuts again."

on other people's books

"A great American road-trip novel—improbable, scary, and transcendent." (Winslow in Love by Kevin Canty, her former student)

"Reality is not the perception of humankind alone but of all creatures. The White Bone is a brilliant precursor of the novel of the future--a realization of the novel of noble and tragic lives not our own. This sorrowful novel does holy work because it engages us in the holiest of acts--empathy." (The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy, a bestseller in Canada)

"Cool, clean, and devastating all-American realism." (A Stranger in This World by Kevin Canty, her former student)

"This is a swift, smart, sharply self-aware account of a woman who loves love." (Making Love, A Romance by Lucretia Stewart)

"Part tract, part travelogue, Lynas's smart, hip, and factual book wakes us up and guides us to action. High Tide is a lively, instructive primer for awareness and change." (On High Tide, The Truth About Our Climate Crisis by Mark Lynas)

joy williams drives a bronco

what does this mean, that she drives a bronco, yet writes a nonfiction book attacking people for destroying the environment? it means that, on a scale of 1-100, she is maybe like a 70 (or something) in terms of 'saving the world'

100 would be balancing it out perfectly so that the amount of 'world' you save is the maximum amount you can, in your life, save (this is really complex, for example you can kill yourself and not cause harm, but also not save any world; or you can kill yourself and ten people to prevent twenty people from dying; or you can write books to change people's thinking, saving thousands of lives, and while writing those books drive a bronco, maybe so you can think better and write more books to save more of the world; and there's the question of what 'save' and 'world' mean exactly)

it seems too complex to say anything about; especially, i think, in an interview, where you don't have time to think, which is what happened to joy williams here probably (copy-pasted from LexisNexis):

February 18, 2001 Sunday
Correction Appended
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section 6; Column 1; Magazine Desk; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 613 words

HEADLINE: The Way We Live Now: 2-18-01: Questions for Joy Williams; Up a Tree

BYLINE: By David Rakoff

BODY:

Q: Tell me about your book of essays, "Ill Nature." It has a certain scorched-earth tone.

Well, why not? It's a very environmentally focused book. I'm sure readers will be indignant. They'll throw the book across the room. I hope the book will jolt people simply through the aggression of the language to view afresh their own attitudes toward the way they live and treat animals and the environment.

How specifically would you want Americans to re-view the way they live?

I know this all sounds incredibly naive -- just for them to think about their actions.

If we all just wondered what on earth we're doing here, the thought, if we could face it, would transform our life immensely. I'm really quite the pessimist, though. I don't have any great hope that this will happen.

Must environmentalists cop to the contradictions in their own lives, come clean?

That's preposterous -- nothing could ever be written. I drive a Bronco. It's an old, large car, and I love my Bronco. I drive all across the country in it. And so I can be immediately assailed on this front. A lot of people who are trying to help and do things and live in certain ways get bogged down in this immediate attack upon certain aspects of their lifestyle. It's easy to attack any environmentalist. One should attempt to have as much integrity as one can in a very difficult, technological, complex time.

So how do you change people's minds?

I'm not interested at all in the mild and polite, or having to be so courteous and responsible. It's not as though I'm up for a cabinet post or anything.

Speaking of cabinet positions and the environment, what do you think about Ralph Nader's contention that the environmental policies of the new administration will be so horrible that they will merely galvanize people to action?

Oh, Nader! I won't speak to people in Florida who voted for Nader ever again. I think that's totally preposterous. I can't imagine someone actually swallowing that line. He did a great disservice. It's going to be worse thanour worst nightmare.

So then where do you go in terms of Hippocratically doing the least harm?

This is what all my friends say in Key West: "But where will you go?" That sort of resignation is truly horrible and unacceptable. That's fine for the They -- you know, the They who feel that since you really can't change anything, why do anything? I mean, just try to do the small things.

But who are the They? I eat meat. I'm wearing a leather belt, I live in a toxic American city. I am alive only because of drugs that were developed through animal research. I'm thrilled they killed all those animals for my benefit. I am the They.

That's a false moral equivalent. It's like that famous National Lampoon cover that showed a dog with a revolver pointed at its head: "Buy this magazine or we'll shoot this dog."

If our presence in nature is by definition denuding and corrupting, wouldn't it follow that the truly moral alternative would be to live in New York City?

Oh, definitely. Wouldn't that be wonderful, if there were just these gorgeous cities, and then everything else was a preserve? I don't have to see a place. The thought that it exists and that extraordinary animals can live and sustain themselves in an extraordinary landscape that could be destroyed just because of an administration that's going to be out in four years is so upsetting. That's why I'm so annoyed at Nader and the people he influenced and snowed. And we seem to be powerless before it. It's going to be a very bad time. No, it's just nice to think about the gorgeous city on a hill.

But then what do we eat?

Well, eating is so overrated. Here, have a mint, they're delicious. -- David Rakoff