William Randall

From time to time we all tend to wonder what sort of “story” our life might comprise: what it means, where it is going, and whether it hangs together as a whole. In The Stories We Are, William Lowell Randall explores the links between literature and life and speculates on the range of storytelling styles through which people compose their lives. In doing so, he draws on a variety of fields, including psychology, psychotherapy, theology, philosophy, feminist theory, and literary theory. Using categories like plot, character, point of view, and style, Randall plays with the possibility that we each make sense of the events of our lives to the extent that we weave them into our own unfolding novel, as simultaneously its author, narrator, main character, and reader. In the process, he offers us a unique perspective on features of our day-to-day world such as secrecy, self-deception, gossip, prejudice, intimacy, maturity, and the proverbial “art of living.” First published in 1995, this second edition of The Stories We Are includes a new preface and afterword by the author that offer insight into his argument and evolution as a scholar, as well as an illuminating foreword by Ruthellen Josselson.

An Essay on Self-Creation, Second Edition

The Stories We Are

William Lowell Randall

Professor and Chair Gerontology Department Gary Kenyon, PhD

Gary M. Kenyon

As we travel our paths and weave our tales, are we growing truly wiser or only older? If wiser, then how? In wrestling with such questions, Randall and Kenyon undo popular perceptions of wisdom as reserved for the talented few. They rethink the nature of wisdom by locating it in the stories of our own lives.

William Randall

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