Alexandra Styron isn’t afraid to say it, said Bob Minzesheimer in USA Today. Her father, the titanic Southern writer William Styron, who died in 2006, could be, as she puts it, a “monumental a--hole.” Growing up the youngest of the author’s four children, Styron was taught to obey one rule above all others: “Don’t disturb Daddy when he’s working.” He “inspired fear and loathing in us a good deal more often than it feels comfortable to admit,” she writes in her new memoir, Reading My Father. Styron feels no bitterness, though. “Writing was the most important thing in his life. It undid him,” she says. As a child, she says, “I loved him and abhorred him.” As an adult, she says, “I wanted to understand him.”
Letters that her father left with Duke University opened new windows for her, said John Meroney in The Atlantic. “My father’s daily life, like most writers’, was very solitary,” she says. “But one of the discoveries I made was how many close friendships he had, and how deep they were.” Often withdrawn, even depressed, in daily life, he was warm and forthcoming in his letters. “I got lost in those papers,” she says. “It’s where I found my father.” Styron can’t help but wonder what her dad, who was prickly when she published a novel while he was alive, would think of her new project. “I’d like to think he’d be proud and flattered,” she says. “But I’m not sentimental about it or him. He might be furious at me.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
The complicated problem of banning menthol cigarettesThe Explainer Banning menthol smokes will save lives, public health officials say. But this is an election year.
-
Should AI have rights?Talking point Technology is becoming smarter
-
Movies to watch in May, from 'Furiosa' to 'The Fall Guy'The Week Recommends A low-fi A24 horror, a May-December romance inspired by Harry Styles and more
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”