Some happiness in Stoner's sad life, but for how long?

At last some happiness comes into the sorrowful life of Stoner in the eponymous novel by John Williams as he (Stoner, not John Williams) begins a relationship with a similarly awkward, shy, and nerdy English instructor. Williams notes, as their relationship begins, something like: And so William Stoner had his affair. But I think the word "affair" is off in this case; Stoner's wife, Edith, is so mean and their relationship is so nonexistent that his new relationship w/ Miss Driscoll (you almost expect him to call her that) doesn't in any way seem to have the illicit, surreptitious characteristics of a marital affair. It seems consensual by all parties - though no doubt when Edith learns of it she will fight it out just to make Stoner's life more miserable. In any event, watching the two of them get to know each other and begin their relationship was so sweet and painful - once again, a beautifully rendered action in this excellent novel: she's a former grad student who'd audited Stoner's seminar on the renaissance lyric, she shows him some of her work and he's very impressed and goes to her tiny basement apartment to share his ideas - which leads to many meetings in the apartment, drinking coffee, entirely chaste and nerdy, and eventually he determines maybe she's just being polite in welcoming his attention, stops going to her, then hears around the office that she's out sick, he goes to her place bringing some ridiculous scholarly article for her to read and, at last!, he figures out she's interested in him and so begins the "affair." They're very well suited to each other - so it probably will come to a tragic or sorrowful end - but what's so striking is the delicacy with which Williams develops this relationship, the complete credibility - they are totally recognizable types familiar in any academic setting, yet they're not just types, they - or in particular he - feel like fully rounded characters, living, suffering, surprising us a little from time to time. I wish the female characters were more developed - but maybe that's material for another novel (in some ways this reminds me of another midwestern novel - what's the title? Mrs. Something? a diptych of novels one about the husband, the other about the wife, a whole sorrowful life told in very short chapters - [Mrs. Bridge, just cheated and looked it up]. Stoner's wife, a likely victim of abuse by her father, is almost necessarily more two-dimensional, locked onto the page, in that this novel is from 1965 and set over along period of time but largely in the 1930s; from today's vantage, she would have much more opportunities for healing: therapy, support groups, medication, and general support and reinforcement by various political liberation movements and by a much broader cultural context and understanding - in 1930, however, she had little choice but to repress and resent.