{"id":16477,"date":"2015-09-07T22:44:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T02:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=16477"},"modified":"2015-09-07T22:44:43","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T02:44:43","slug":"joy-williams-chicken-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2015\/09\/07\/joy-williams-chicken-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy Williams: “Chicken Hill”"},"content":{"rendered":"
Click here<\/a> to read the story in its entirety on The New Yorker<\/em> webpage. Joy Williams's \"Chicken Hill\" was originally published in the September 14, 2015 issue of The New Yorker<\/em>.<\/pre>\n
\"September<\/a>I’ve heard so many wonderful things about Joy Williams, but I’ve never read anything by her. I’m thrilled at the chance to encounter her in this week’s issue.<\/p>\n
Please share any thoughts you have about the story, Ms. Williams, or, well, anything, below.<\/p>\n
Adrienne will kick off things with some of her thoughts here:<\/p>\n
I am fascinated by stories of older women — how they look at their past, how they anticipate the future, and how they see their present experience. This focus in fiction creates microcosms of how we all tell stories — create our own narratives — to make life a little bit easier, to validate who we have become.<\/p>\n
Joy Williams took us right into the center of a story, knowing we would catch on rather quickly. How can we not?\u00a0We see, even if Ruth cannot — will<\/em> not.<\/p>\n
Ruth is like many we have met. She has a sense of superiority, propriety, gentility. She has seen the neighboring child before, but they only begin to converse when the older woman is eating lunch, a tuna sandwich with adverse effects. The child is not there to play in her gulley (is that what Ruth would have loved to do as a child?) but to draw the woman with art supplies from a hard-to-ignore backpack.<\/p>\n
A friendship of sorts is born.\u00a0The child visits. Her questions are as pointed and guileless as her responses are very adult and clinical.<\/p>\n
This story is sweet and simple.\u00a0The themes are universal, easy to find, and easy to connect with.\u00a0I am enthused by how unencumbered the piece is. Even what may appear complicated, intricate, is really quite straight-forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cChicken Hill\u201d is a clear-eyed view of what we do not like to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week’s New Yorker<\/em> fiction is “Chicken Hill,” by veteran writer Joy Williams. Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[788,94],"tags":[560],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-16477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-joy-williams","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Joy-Williams-Chicken-Hill.jpg?fit=690%2C936&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-4hL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16480,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16477\/revisions\/16480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16477"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}