Williams began her writing career with strength on her side: her first novel, State of Grace received a glowing review from New York Times critic Gail Godwin. Godwin hails Williams as a “first-rate new novelist.” Alice Adams, in the New York Times Book Review, praises Williams as “talented” and “skillful,” but her review of The Changeling is thoroughly negative. Adams is completely turned off by Williams’s wild tale of animals as people and vice versa. Anatole Broyard’s June 3, 1978, review of the novel for the New York Times is similarly proportioned: he is a fan of Williams’s work in general but despises this book in particular. Both critics acknowledge that Williams took risks with her novel, pushing the boundaries of character and delving into the avant-garde.

Williams’s first collection of short stories, Taking...