The Visiting Privilege

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The Visiting Privilege
512 pages; Knopf
Like an art retrospective, the publication of a volume of selected stories late in an author's career is an opportunity to assess a lifetime's work. Sometimes the styles and subject matter are so varied as to make for an ungainly grouping; in other cases, a harmony of voice and vision emerges.  The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories, which includes 33 works culled from previous collections and 13 appearing in book form for the first time, is powerfully united by Joy Williams's profound gift for illuminating with compassion and mordant humor, characters on the jagged edge of grief and spiritual ruin. In "The Mother Cell," a group of mothers bound by violence—they all have children who are murderers—attempt to consider their legacy. "Taking Care" depicts a preacher who must care for the grandchild his daughter abandoned as his wife's health falters. In "The Country," a newly single father traverses desolate terrain to attend meetings of Come and See!. a gathering of misfits that includes a woman who believes her life's purpose is to accompany the dying through their final moments. But in the end, these gestures toward fellowship offer little solace. The search for mercy is at odds with a landscape that is increasingly merciless—and yet hope remains. While the world views of Williams' characters are uncompromisingly truthful—"We've settled nothing," says one of the women in "The Mother Cell"—the stories are rich with tenderness. There is the theater usher who tries to save an unspooling alcoholic, and the unfathomable love of a man for his wife: "He shares his heart with her, all that there is." The Visiting Privilege is also laced with Williams's trademark cutting wit, which provides a small release, as of steam escaping through a pressure valve, while also pushing the stories' dark absurdity. Williams is a wonderfully tricky writer to categorize—her work does not appear to belong to a single school or style—but there is a moment in "Honored Guest" when the young narrator, Helen, speaks not only to the crux of her own situation, but to the collection as a whole: "To live was like being an honored guest. The thought was outside her, large and calm. Then you were no longer an honored guest. The thought turned away from her and faded."
— Laura Van Den Berg