Stoner movie

The Hollywood Reporter reports that John Williams’s 1965 novel Stoner is being adapted as a movie, directed by Joe Wright and starring Casey Affleck. A press release from the companies behind the movie describes the novel as the story of

the hardscrabble life of William Stoner, a dirt-poor farmer turned academic, who emerges as an unlikely existential hero while making his way through the first half of the 20th century.

Key elements in that description — “hardscrabble,” “dirt-poor,” “unlikely existential hero” — are lifted from the back cover of the New York Review Books paperback edition. But the press release still manages to get something wrong: Stoner is not “a dirt-poor farmer turned academic”: he’s the son of a farming family.

I’m sure I’ll see this movie, though I’m prepared to be disappointed.

Other Stoner posts
John Williams on Stoner and teaching : On “the true nature of the University” : Stoner and adjunct life : Stoner FTW

[And what’s with the producer’s claim that the novel is “not well-known”? It is. In 2013 NPR reported that the novel was a bestseller through much of Europe.]