William Styron | |
|---|---|
.jpg) William Styron in 1967 | |
| Born | William Clark Styron Jr. June 11, 1925 (1925-06-11) Newport News, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | November 1, 2006 (2006-12) (aged 81) Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist, essayist |
| Education | Davidson College Duke University (BA) |
| Period | 1951–2006 |
| Notable works | Lie Down in Darkness The Confessions of Nat Turner Sophie's Choice Darkness Visible |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4, includingAlexandra |
| Signature | |
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| Website | |
| william-styron | |
William Clark Styron Jr. (June 11, 1925 – November 1, 2006) was an Americannovelist andessayist who won major literary awards for his work.[1]
Styron was born in theHilton Village historic district[2] ofNewport News, Virginia, the son of Pauline Margaret (Abraham) and William Clark Styron.[1] His birthplace was less than a hundred miles from the site ofNat Turner's slave rebellion, the inspiration for Styron's most famous and controversial novel.
Styron's mother was from theNorth while his father was aSouthernliberal, laying out broad racial perspectives in the household. Styron's father, a shipyard engineer, sufferedclinical depression, as would later Styron himself. In 1939, at age 14, Styron lost his mother after her decade-long battle withbreast cancer.
Styron attended public school in Warwick County, first atHilton School and then at Morrison High School (now known asWarwick High School) for two years, until his father sent him toChristchurch School, anEpiscopalcollege-preparatory school in theTidewater region of Virginia. Styron once said "of all the schools I attended ... only Christchurch ever commanded something more than mere respect—which is to say, my true and abiding affection."[3]
On graduation, Styron enrolled inDavidson College[4] and joinedPhi Delta Theta. By age eighteen he was reading the writers who would have a lasting influence on his own work, especiallyThomas Wolfe.[4] Styron transferred toDuke University in 1943 as a part of theU.S. Navy andMarine CorpsV-12 program aimed at fast-tracking officer candidates by enrolling them simultaneously in basic training and bachelor's degree programs. There he published his first fiction, a short story heavily influenced byWilliam Faulkner, in an anthology of student work[citation needed]. Styron published several short stories in the university literary magazine,The Archive, between 1944 and 1946.[5] Though Styron was made alieutenant in theU.S. Marine Corps, the Japanese surrendered before his ship leftSan Francisco. After the war, he returned to full-time studies at Duke and completed his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) inEnglish in 1947.[5]
After graduation, Styron took an editing position withMcGraw-Hill inNew York City. Styron later recalled the misery of this work in an autobiographical passage ofSophie’s Choice. After provoking his employers into firing him, he set about writing his first novel in earnest. Three years later, he published the novel,Lie Down in Darkness (1951), the story of a dysfunctional Virginia family. The novel received overwhelming critical acclaim. For this novel, Styron received theRome Prize, awarded by theAmerican Academy in Rome and theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters.
His recall into the military due to theKorean War prevented him from immediately accepting the Rome Prize. Styron joined the Marine Corps, but was discharged in 1952 for eye problems. However, he was to transform his experience atCamp Lejeune, North Carolina into his short novel,The Long March, published serially the following year. This was adapted for thePlayhouse 90 episode "The Long March" in 1958.
Styron spent an extended period in Europe. InParis, he became friends with writersRomain Gary,George Plimpton,Peter Matthiessen,James Baldwin,James Jones andIrwin Shaw, among others. In 1953, the group founded the magazineThe Paris Review, which became a celebrated literary journal.[4]
The year 1953 was eventful for Styron in another way. Finally able to take advantage of his Rome Prize, he traveled to Italy, where he became friends withTruman Capote. At the American Academy, he renewed an acquaintance with a youngBaltimore poet,Rose Burgunder, to whom he had been introduced the previous fall atJohns Hopkins University. They were married in Rome in the spring of 1953.
Some of Styron's experiences during this period inspired his third published bookSet This House on Fire (1960), a novel about intellectual Americanexpatriates on the Amalfi coast of Italy. The novel received mixed reviews in the United States, although its publisher considered it successful in terms of sales. In Europe its translation into French achieved best-seller status, far outselling the American edition.
Styron's next two novels, published between 1967 and 1979, sparked much controversy. Feeling wounded by his first truly harsh reviews[6] forSet This House on Fire, Styron spent the years after its publication researching and writing his next novel, the fictitious memoirs of the historicalNathaniel "Nat" Turner, a slave who led a slave rebellion in 1831.
During the 1960s, Styron became an eyewitness to another time of rebellion in the United States, living and writing at the heart of that turbulent decade, a time highlighted by thecounterculture revolution with its political struggle, civil unrest, and racial tension. The public response to this social upheaval was furious and intense: battle lines were being drawn. In 1968, Styron signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, a vow refusing to pay taxes as a protest against the Vietnam War.[7]
In this atmosphere of dissent, many[who?] had criticized Styron's friend James Baldwin for his novelAnother Country, published in 1962. Among the criticisms was outrage over a black author choosing a white woman as theprotagonist in a story that tells of her involvement with a black man. Baldwin was Styron's house guest for several months following the critical storm generated byAnother Country. During that time, he read early drafts of Styron's new novel, and predicted that Styron's book would face even harsher scrutiny thanAnother Country. "Bill's going to catch it from both sides", he told an interviewer immediately following the 1967 publication ofThe Confessions of Nat Turner.
Baldwin's prediction was correct, and despite public defenses of Styron by leading artists of the time, including Baldwin andRalph Ellison, numerous other black critics reviled Styron's portrayal of Turner as racist stereotyping. The historian and criticJohn Henrik Clarke edited and contributed to a polemical anthology,William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond, published in 1968 by Beacon Press. Particularly controversial was a passage in which Turner fantasizes aboutraping a white woman. Several critics pointed to this as a dangerous perpetuation of a traditional Southern justification forlynching. Styron also writes of a situation where Turner and another slave boy have a homosexual encounter while alone in the woods. Despite the controversy, the novel was a runaway critical and financial success, and won both the 1968Pulitzer Prize for Fiction[8] and theWilliam Dean Howells Medal in 1970.
In the early 1960s, Styron became a mentor to prisoner Benjamin Reid, who in 1957 had beaten a woman to death with a hammer in a botched robbery attempt. Through his writings and advocacy, Styron successfully helped to have Reid's death sentence commuted in 1962. In 1970, Reid escaped prison before his scheduled parole and kidnapped and raped a woman.[9]
Styron's next novel,Sophie's Choice (1979),also generated significant controversy, in part due to Styron's decision to portray a non-Jewish victim ofNazism and in part due to its explicit sexuality and profanity. It was banned in South Africa, censored in the Soviet Union, and banned inCommunist Poland for "its unflinching portrait of Polish anti-Semitism."[10] It has also been banned in some high schools in the United States.[11]
The novel tells the story of Sophie (a PolishRoman Catholic who survivesAuschwitz), Nathan (her brilliant Jewish lover who has paranoid schizophrenia), and Stingo (a Southern transplant in post-World War II-Brooklyn who falls in love with Sophie). It won the 1980National Book Award[12][n 1] and was a nationwide bestseller. A 1982film version was nominated for fiveAcademy Awards, withMeryl Streep winning theAcademy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Sophie.Kevin Kline andPeter MacNicol played Nathan and Stingo, respectively.
Styron's readership expanded with the publication ofDarkness Visible in 1990. This memoir, which began as a magazine article, chronicles the author's descent intodepression and his near-fatal night of "despair beyond despair".[13] It is a first-hand account of a major depressive episode and challenged the modern taboo on acknowledging such issues. The memoir's goals included increasing knowledge and decreasing stigmatization of major depressive disorders and suicide. It explored thephenomenology of the disease among those with depression, their loved ones, and the general public as well.
Earlier, in December 1989, Styron had written an op-ed forThe New York Times responding to the disappointment and mystification among scholars about the apparent suicide ofPrimo Levi, the remarkable Italian writer who survived theNazi death camps, but apparently had depression in his final years. Reportedly, it was the public's unsympathetic response to Levi's death that impelled Styron to take a more active role as an advocate for educating the public about the nature of depression and the role it played in mental health and suicide.[4]
Styron noted in an article forVanity Fair that
the pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain. Through the healing process of time—and through medical intervention or hospitalization in many cases—most people survive depression, which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer.[14]
Styron was awarded theSt. Louis Literary Award from theSaint Louis University Library Associates.[15][16]
Styron was awarded thePrix mondial Cino Del Duca in 1985.
His short story "Shadrach" was filmed in 1998, under thesame title. It was co-directed by his daughter Susanna Styron.
Other works published during his lifetime include the playIn the Clap Shack (1973), and a collection of his nonfiction,This Quiet Dust (1982).
French presidentFrançois Mitterrand invited Styron to his first Presidential inauguration, and later made him a Commander of theLegion of Honor.[17] In 1993, Styron was awarded theNational Medal of Arts.[18]
In 2002 an opera byNicholas Maw based onSophie's Choice premièred at theRoyal Opera House inCovent Garden,London. Maw wrote thelibretto and composed the music. He had approached Styron about writing the libretto, but Styron declined. Later the opera received a new production by stage director Markus Bothe at theDeutsche Oper Berlin and theVolksoper Wien, and had its North American premiere at theWashington National Opera in October 2006.[19]
A collection of Styron's papers and records is housed at the Rubenstein Library, Duke University.[5]
In 1996 William Styron received the 1st Fitzgerald Award on the centenary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's birth. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature award is given annually in Rockville Maryland, the city where Fitzgerald, his wife, and his daughter are buried, as part of the F. ScottFitzgerald Literary Festival. In 1988 he was awarded theEdward MacDowell Medal.[20]
He was a Charter member of theFellowship of Southern Writers.
ThePort Warwick neighborhood of Newport News, Virginia, was named after the fictional city in Styron'sLie Down in Darkness. The neighborhood describes itself as a "mixed-usenew urbanism development." The most prominent feature of Port Warwick is William Styron Square along with its two mainboulevards, Loftis Boulevard and Nat Turner Boulevard, named after characters in Styron's novels. Styron himself was appointed to design a naming system for Port Warwick, deciding to "honor great American writers", resulting inPhilip Roth Street,Thomas Wolfe Street,Flannery O'Connor Street,Herman Melville Avenue and others.[21]
In 1985, he had his first serious bout withdepression. Once he recovered from his illness, Styron was able to write the memoirDarkness Visible (1990), the work for which he became best known during the last two decades of his life.
While doing a fellowship at theAmerican Academy in Rome, Styron renewed a passing acquaintance with youngBaltimore poet Rose Burgunder. They married in Rome in the spring of 1953. Together, they had four children: daughter Susanna Styron is a film director; daughter Paola is an internationally acclaimed modern dancer; daughterAlexandra is a writer, known for the 2001 novelAll The Finest Girls and 2011 memoirReading My Father: A Memoir; and son Thomas is a professor ofclinical psychology atYale University.
Styron died frompneumonia on November 1, 2006, at age 81, onMartha's Vineyard. He is buried atWest Chop Cemetery inVineyard Haven,Dukes County,Massachusetts.[22]
Note – the following is a list of the first American editions of Styron's books
