Stoner is considered a classic American novel. A sampling of the massive praise for the book includes:"A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life.I'm amazed a novel this good escaped general attention for so long." --Ian McEwan"One of the great unheralded 20th-century American novels .Almost perfect." --Bret Easton Ellis"I have read few novels as deep and as clear as Stoner. It deserves to be called a quiet classic of American literature." --Chad Harbach"The most beautiful book in the world.

" --Emma Straub"A poignant campus novel from the mid-'60s--an unjustly neglected gem." --Nick Hornby, People"The book begins boldly with a mention of Stoner's death, and a nod to his profound averageness: 'Few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his courses.' By the end, though, Williams has made Stoner's disappointing life into such a deep and honest portrait, so unsoftened and unromanticized, that it's quietly breathtaking."--The Boston Globe "One of the great forgotten novels of the past century. I have bought at least 50 copies of it in the past few years, using it as a gift for friends.The book is so beautifully paced and cadenced that it deserves the status of classic."--Colum McCann, Top 10 Novels, The Guardian "Stoner is undeniably a great book, but I can also understand why it isn't a sentimental favorite in its native land. You could almost describe it as an anti-Gatsby.

Part of Stoner's greatness is that it sees life whole and as it is, without delusion yet without despair.The novel embodies the very virtues it exalts, the same virtues that probably relegate it, like its titular hero, to its perpetual place in the shade. But the book, like professor William Stoner, isn't out to win popularity contests. It endures, illumined from within."--Tim Kreider, The New Yorker "It's simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But it's one of the most fascinating things that you've ever come across."--Tom Hanks Steve Almond wrote an article on Stoner for the New York Times magazine in 2014: https://www.nytimes.

com/2014/05/11/magazine/you-should-seriously-read-stoner-right-now.html Stoner is currently being made into a movie, starring Casey Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones. Steve Almond is a best-selling and well-known author.