Concerning the Future of Souls

Williams follows up Ninety-Nine Stories of God with another resonant collection of 99 vignettes, this time centered on themes of environmental destruction and mortality. The entries—none longer than two pages and some as short as a single word—showcase Williams’s sly wit. In one, a woman’s entire life is traced through the trees she’s planted (an oak is “sheared and lopped to an unsurvivable degree” due to an “increase in broadband demand”). In another, a woman recalls how her husband proposed to her in skywriting, and how “the beginning was disappearing even before the end appeared.” Elsewhere, Williams delves into the strange death of monk Thomas Merton, who was found with a short-circuited fan lying on his body; and zooms in on Vladimir Nabokov on his deathbed, distraught that he’s no longer capable of stalking and extinguishing butterflies. Another entry depicts the day in 2021 when 1,400 dolphins were killed in the Faroe Islands. Interspersed throughout are brief episodes portraying the discomfort and fretfulness of Azrael, the angel of death, who is worried that “the mountains have been stripped of their holiness, the oceans of their mysteries.” As with the previous volume, these pieces riddle the reader’s mind with their exquisite enigmas. Williams continues to astonish. Agent: Amelia Atlas, CAA. (July)

Correction: A previous version of this review incorrectly stated that the entries are untitled.