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A review by jamesdanielhorn
Honored Guest by Joy Williams
3.0
Phase Three of my trek through the short stories of Joy Williams, I have made my way through Honored Guest; and so far, it’s my least favorite. This is not to say these stories are bad (many are excellent), their were just not quite as many that were as deeply intriguing and affecting to me as the other collections.
The book starts off very strong. The titular story, Congress, and Marabou are all outstanding and you can read many others on here going deeper into them, particularly Congress. I may talk a bit more in depth about some of these in my review of The Visiting Privilege, but for now I’ll move it along.
That story, “The Visiting Privilege” initially published in this collection, was my least favorite due to its fat-phobic content. Again, I plan to go into a bit more detail about it in my other review, but it just bothers the hell out of me when skinny women (or anyone for that matter) write fat characters and only depict them as fat and negative. It sours the whole experience for me. Not only did this story do that, but it left the two women nameless for much of the story simply calling them the fat twins, then the main character nicknamed them (negative) and then continued to just identity them by their body type. Yuck.
If I am being honest with myself, I found much of the rest of this collection was kind of unmemorable. Maybe I was annoyed by the previous story but, I just didn’t connect with them. I did however notice the sort of jaded disconnection in the characters, that really made Harrow work for me. Particularly in “Fortune”and “Substance” but the rest as well. The other collection hinted at this, but here it seems to have become a style point for Ms Williams.
As I have been doing with these collections in other reviews, I’d like to go a bit deeper on the omissions from the Visiting Privilege. In this case we only lost one story “Claro” which I cannot for the life of me understand why they would leave this out. For me it was the highlight of the book. It also feels so Joy Williams, that it would have fit perfectly in a demonstrative omnibus, it’s not overlong or too short, and it really does not feel derivative. It did remind me of Juan Rulfo’s work, but not in an homage kind of way. Simply in the “Life for Life’s sake, and life can be cruel” way this story unfolds, which is not unlike many of her others. This has been the biggest oversight in the exclusions.
So for me this collection is absolutely still worth reading just that some are “good not great” but “good not great” for Joy Williams is still exceptional. If fat-phobia bothers you like it does me, skip TVP.
The book starts off very strong. The titular story, Congress, and Marabou are all outstanding and you can read many others on here going deeper into them, particularly Congress. I may talk a bit more in depth about some of these in my review of The Visiting Privilege, but for now I’ll move it along.
That story, “The Visiting Privilege” initially published in this collection, was my least favorite due to its fat-phobic content. Again, I plan to go into a bit more detail about it in my other review, but it just bothers the hell out of me when skinny women (or anyone for that matter) write fat characters and only depict them as fat and negative. It sours the whole experience for me. Not only did this story do that, but it left the two women nameless for much of the story simply calling them the fat twins, then the main character nicknamed them (negative) and then continued to just identity them by their body type. Yuck.
If I am being honest with myself, I found much of the rest of this collection was kind of unmemorable. Maybe I was annoyed by the previous story but, I just didn’t connect with them. I did however notice the sort of jaded disconnection in the characters, that really made Harrow work for me. Particularly in “Fortune”and “Substance” but the rest as well. The other collection hinted at this, but here it seems to have become a style point for Ms Williams.
As I have been doing with these collections in other reviews, I’d like to go a bit deeper on the omissions from the Visiting Privilege. In this case we only lost one story “Claro” which I cannot for the life of me understand why they would leave this out. For me it was the highlight of the book. It also feels so Joy Williams, that it would have fit perfectly in a demonstrative omnibus, it’s not overlong or too short, and it really does not feel derivative. It did remind me of Juan Rulfo’s work, but not in an homage kind of way. Simply in the “Life for Life’s sake, and life can be cruel” way this story unfolds, which is not unlike many of her others. This has been the biggest oversight in the exclusions.
So for me this collection is absolutely still worth reading just that some are “good not great” but “good not great” for Joy Williams is still exceptional. If fat-phobia bothers you like it does me, skip TVP.