•  Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976) is Raymond Carver’s first collection of short stories. He was dedicated to short forms of writing, leading some to declare that he revived the short story in North America. Williams and Carver were contemporaries (Carver died in 1988), and Williams’s style is sometimes compared to his.

•  A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (1955), by Flannery O’Connor, is a collection of short fiction by the famed but unfortunately short-lived southern American author. Williams is often considered by critics to be using styles and themes that are reminiscent of O’Connor’s work, especially in both authors’ use of the gothic and grotesque.

•  State of Grace (1973) is Williams’s first novel. It tells the tale...