The Pelican Child

Fiction

Sep 28

About the book

Author: Joy Williams
Publisher: Knopf

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

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My review

I love weird short stories, and those that play with speculative elements or folklore all the more. But I’m not going to lie to you, this collection was not for me.

Joy Williams is a literary giant and so clearly, her work is technically impressive. But I fear she is too smart for me, and not in a way that inspired me to slow down and puzzle it out. Most of these stories all end before they’ve begun, to the point where it begins to feel like a gimmick, and in a way that left me feeling like I had no idea what they were about, much less what the collection overall was meant to do (all of the stories have been previously published elsewhere, so maybe nothing). And the problem was, I just didn’t care enough to try to figure it out.

Also? Sooooo many pretentious SAT words.

Anyway, it sounds like I hated this book, when really it just annoyed me, because it feels like one of those collections (and National Book Award nominations, ope) that is more about the author’s age and bibliography.