Joy Williams, one of the best fiction writers of her generation, has not enjoyed the broader audiences that have attended to (for example) Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, and Tim O’Brien. That said, she is recognized by fellow writers and the best critics as a literary genius, a writer whose ability to achieve astonishing revelation, and to refresh the language in achieving this revelation, is nothing short of astonishing in itself, even uncanny. She is the author of four novels, three short-story collections, and a collection of essays, all highly acclaimed and celebrated in literary circles. Her first novel, A State of Grace, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent, The Quick and the Dead, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She received a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which recently inducted her as a member. She won the prestigious Rea Award for the short story. Numerous stories of hers have been anthologized in prize collections and a handful are regularly used in textbooks. But a best seller she is not. Why?