Novels
Williams wrote State of Grace in a trailer outside Tallahassee, Florida, and her novel went on to be a finalist for the National Book Award. Truman Capote called it the best novel of the year. As a new mother Williams received a Guggenheim Fellowship and used it to write The Changeling, a novel less well received at the time but more recently having gotten its due praise. For Breaking and Entering, she expanded two short stories about the characters Willie and Liberty into a novel. The Quick and the Dead, set in Arizona, was a nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. Now in 2021 we have Harrow, perhaps her bleakest and strangest novel yet, garnering her exceptional praise again.