John Williams

Taught at the University of Denver and published four novels, one of which sold poorly, went out of print, and then came back from the dead. Stoner follows a Missouri farm boy who discovers English literature almost by accident, becomes a mediocre academic, endures a bad marriage and an institutional feud, and dies largely unremarked.

Almost nothing happens. It was ignored in 1965 and rediscovered decades later, first in Europe, where it became an unlikely bestseller in the 2010s.

Butcher's Crossing anticipated the revisionist western by years, and Augustus took the National Book Award in 1973. Stoner is the one people press on strangers, usually while struggling to explain why a book about disappointment is so hard to put down.