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Joy Williams Biography

(1944– ), A State of Grace, The Changeling, Taking Care, Breaking and Entering, The Stories of Escape



American writer, born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, educated at Marietta College and the University of Iowa. Her first novel, A State of Grace (1973), explored the consciousness of a woman about to give birth; it was followed by The Changeling (1978) and Taking Care (1982), a collection of stories. It was with Breaking and Entering (1988), her first novel to be published outside America, that Williams gained a reputation as one of the exponents of the hard-edged American movement described as Dirty Realism. Her whimsical, delicately written tale of a drifting vagrant couple is also reminiscent of the lyrical eccentricity of the domestic comedies of Anne Tyler. In The Stories of Escape (1990) a similar blending of the whimsically introspective and the real is employed.



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Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern FictionEncyclopedia of Literature: Patrick White (Patrick Victor Martindale White) Biography to David Wojahn Biography