John Williams’ ‘Stoner’ reaches cult classic status

Stoner was John Williams’ third novel, but it’s the one that has earned the former head of DU’s creative writing program the most attention. The tale of a farm boy-turned-college professor has grown from a poor-selling title upon its release in 1965 to a cult classic that was reprinted by New York Review Books in 2006. While at DU, Williams (BA English ’49, MA ’50) wrote his fourth and final novel, Augustus, a fictional exploration of the life of Julius Caesar that won the National Book Award for fiction in 1973.