In 1950, at the age of twenty-four, William Clark Styron, Jr., wrote to
his mentor, Professor William Blackburn of Duke University. The young
writer was struggling with his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, and
he was nervous about whether his "strain and toil" would amount to
anything. "When I mature and broaden," Styron told Blackburn, "I expect
to use the language on as exalted and elevated a level as I can sustain.
I believe that a writer should accommodate language to his own peculiar
personality, and mine wants to use great words, evocative words, when
the situation demands them."
In February 1952, Styron was awarded the Prix de Rome of the American
Academy of Arts and Letters, which crowned him a literary star. In
Europe, Styron met and married Rose Burgunder, and found himself
immersed in a new generation of expatriate writers. His relationships
with George Plimpton and Peter Matthiessen culminated in Styron
introducing the debut issue of The Paris Review. Literary critic
Alfred Kazin described him as one of the postwar "super-egotists" who
helped transform American letters.
His controversial The Confessions of Nat Turner won the 1968 Pulitzer
Prize, while Sophie's Choice was awarded the 1980 National Book Award,
and Darkness Visible, Styron's groundbreaking recounting of his ordeal
with depression, was not only a literary triumph, but became a landmark
in the field.
Part and parcel of Styron's literary ascendance were his friendships
with Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, John and Jackie Kennedy, Arthur
Miller, James Jones, Carlos Fuentes, Wallace Stegner, Robert Penn
Warren, Philip Roth, C. Vann Woodward, and many of the other leading
writers and intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century.
This incredible volume takes readers on an American journey from FDR to
George W. Bush through the trenchant observations of one of the
country's greatest writers. Not only will readers take pleasure in
William Styron's correspondence with and commentary about the people and
events that made the past century such a momentous and transformative
time, they will also share the writer's private meditations on the very
art of writing.
Advance praise for Selected Letters of William Styron
"I first encountered Bill Styron when, at twenty, I read The
Confessions of Nat Turner. Hillary and I became friends with Bill and
Rose early in my presidency, but I continued to read him, fascinated by
the man and his work, his triumphs and troubles, the brilliant lights
and dark corners of his amazing mind. These letters, carefully and
lovingly selected by Rose, offer real insight into both the great writer
and the good man."--President Bill Clinton
"The Bill Styron revealed in these letters is altogether the Bill Styron
who was a dear friend and esteemed colleague to me for close to fifty
years. The humor, the generosity, the loyalty, the self-awareness, the
commitment to literature, the openness, the candor about matters closest
to him--all are on display in this superb selection of his
correspondence. The directness in the artful sentences is such that I
felt his beguiling presence all the while that I was enjoying one letter
after another."--Philip Roth
"Bill Styron's letters were never envisioned, far less composed, as part
of the Styron oeuvre, yet that is what they turn out to be. Brilliant,
passionate, eloquent, insightful, moving, dirty-minded, indignant, and
hilarious, they accumulate power in the reading, becoming in themselves
a work of literature."--Peter Matthiessen
