WILLIAM STYRON (1925-2006) , a native of the Virginia Tidewater,
was a graduate of Duke University and a veteran of the U.S. Marine
Corps. His books include Lie Down in Darkness, The Long March, Set
This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie's Choice,
This Quiet Dust, Darkness Visible, and A Tidewater Morning. He was
awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Howells Medal, the
American Book Award, the Legion d'Honneur, and the Witness to
Justice Award from the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation. With his
wife, the poet and activist Rose Styron, he lived for most of his
adult life in Roxbury, Connecticut, and in Vineyard Haven,
Massachusetts, where he is buried.
JAMES L. W. WEST III, a native of Virginia, is Sparks Professor of
English at Pennsylvania State University. West is a book historian,
scholarly editor, and biographer. He has written books on William
Styron, F. Scott Fitzgerald and on the history of professional
authorship in America and has held fellowships from the J. S.
Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the
National Endowment for the Humanities. West has had Fulbright
appointments in England (at Cambridge University) and in Belgium
(at the Universite de Li ge). He is the general editor of The
Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and is at
work on a volume of essays.
“William Styron’s My Generation: Collected Nonfiction is both
unsurpassably charming and unflinchingly honest, whether recounting
the fallout from The Confessions of Nat Turner or reminiscing about
the slave-owning grandmother who warned him never to forget he was
a Southerner.”—Vogue
“As is typical of such a comprehensive collection, some of the
pieces were written with a great sense of purpose, while others are
more casual in their intentions and execution. Yet even the
slightest bear the hallmarks that make Styron a writer who did
indeed matter: lyrical, carefully considered prose, unvarnished
honesty and the impetus that the truth, be it comfortable or ugly,
is the essence of literary permanence.”—BookPage
“At its most accomplished, Styron’s non-fiction mixes a
conscientious, richly traditional prose style with a strong current
of fellow feeling, a certain awe at the human condition, which is
what gives power to his best fiction. . . . Styron stood tall in
his generation, and the best of him will stand up over time.”—USA
Today
“A must for every Styron fan’s library.”—BBC
“If Styron is best remembered for his fiction—Lie Down in Darkness,
The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie’s Choice—and his harrowing
memoir of depression, Darkness Visible, his extensive output of
short nonfiction stands as additional testament to his enormous
talent and range of interests. His writing on his literary efforts,
and those of his contemporaries, is honest, generous, and
insightful. . . . This is a major addition to our knowledge of one
of an impressive literary generation’s foremost authors.”—Booklist
(starred review)
“Wide-ranging, lucid, and incisive . . . a rich collection [which
testifies] impressively to the power of Styron’s nonfiction. Winner
of a Pulitzer Prize for The Confessions of Nat Turner, a National
Book Award for Sophie’s Choice, and many other honors, Styron is
acclaimed primarily as a novelist, but he contributed regularly to
The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The New Yorker,
and many other venues, with pieces notable for their intelligence,
verve, and crystalline prose.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Impressive . . . There are too many gems to single any
out.”—Publishers Weekly
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