8. Honored Guest (2004), Joy Williams

Honored Guest, a short story collection by Joy Williams, can be compared to Like Life by Lorrie Moore regarding prose style, scope, and subject matter (relatively), yet in this collection, Williams’ stories have a very absurd edge to them. Seemingly normal lines of everyday dialogue pop out at the reader suddenly, completely out of place but completely predictable at once. With Honored Guest, the depressed individual will appreciate the detached listlessness of Willams’ characters and her very existential take on story-arc/ time/ progression. Williams is a master at making reality seem bizarre while presenting reality in an extremely… realistic way, and her narrative scope almost always puts one at ease with depression, almost always makes it satisfying to experience.