Another disappointing read - is it me?: Joy Williams's NYer story

Three cranky days of reading in a row - is it me? - but I'm disappointed by the Joy Williams story, The Fellow, in the current New Yorker; JW is a writer who had a really exciting and promising start to her career a few decades back, then went kind of quiet, and has enjoyed a later-in-life resurgence with really strong reviews of recent books and occasional appearance in the NYer; I have posted on her two previous NYer stories, typical of her work in their edgy dialog and strange happenings bordering on the surreal, plus her obvious love of and interest in animals. But sometimes writers who establish a distinct and unusual voice become labored and mannered as they hit the same keys over and over again, and sometimes writers find publication in the loftier places based on their reputation rather than on any one particular work. What to make of this slight story? It begins OK, with a narrator describing her current unrewarding job as some kind of academic assistant assigned the task of managing a home/retreat that her college/department maintains for visiting writers (the retreat - a rural house in the SW in a desolate and quite remote setting - is something I think I've read about, though I'm not sure if it was in an article or a story, but it may be a place that JW has been a fellow). The current visiting writer turns out to be a troublesome and curt guy who, against regulations, brings a dog to the retreat. Oddly, one requirement for the narrator's job (and for visiting writers?) is to have no fear of water; OK, that's intriguing and just the right note of weirdness. But then what happens? There's a flash flood; narrator goes out to the retreat; no sign of the writer; the dog, however, is still there and the dog engages the narrator in an aimless "conversation." We see in the supposed conversation some of JW's wit and skill at edgy, that is to say nonconsequential, dialog, but as far as I can see there's no point to this "conversation" and really no point to the story - you come away feeling not only disappointed but marooned: What did you take me on this journey? It feels improvisatory rather than completed.