Disjointedness in The Visiting Privilege

Joy Williams’s transition into a late style resembles Alice Munro’s, occurring gradually over her career as the achievement of a perspective envisioned long before, slowly acquired through narrative experimentation and honed possibilities. Her elliptical, disruptive strain is linked to a passion for liminal moments, when consciousness tilts awry, or plants begin to think while inanimate objects somehow magically communicate with us. Enigmas remain enigmatic, even as her descriptions rely heavily on biblical allusions and psychological commonplaces. The sly revelations of earlier stories become in later years deracinating revelations that do not quite add up, as revealed in two drastically different versions of “Another Season” (1966), which is extensively reconfigured in its later version in The Visiting Privilege.