Recently I came across some photographs of my father that I’d never seen before. And I was reminded of what a wonderful dad he was, how much he truly loved us kids and showed it in the time and attention he paid to us. We were so lucky to have him.
So I’m always a bit fascinated—and occasionally horrified—to read about other, more famous dads and their daughters. For example, it’s just come to my attention that Alexandra Styron, youngest daughter of the award-winning author William Styron, has written a memoir about him (Reading My Father). Since Styron is one of my all-time favorite novelists, this book has shot to the top of my must-read list. (I am going to have to step up my personal reading agenda—that is, not fall asleep so quickly—in order to get around to everything on this list. But that is another post altogether.)
I was assigned the Pulitzer-winning The Confessions of Nat Turner in high school, back in the day when literature could be appreciated and studied for its art and the national conversation it conjoined, even if some considered it controversial. (I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am to have had the public school education I did, in a small agricultural town in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley. It seems like something of a miracle now.)
Nat Turner led me to Set This House on Fire, which knocked my socks off, kids. It routinely turns up on lists of books I recommend. Lie Down in Darkness is a classic Southern gothic (published when Styron was just twenty-six years old—in case you needed a little encouragement with your blog today), and I read it next. The Boy’s father and I had just moved to Tennessee and I was working my way through Faulkner (what I hadn’t had to read in high school); Styron fit right in.
When Sophie’s Choice came out, I read it right away. Oh my. You have probably seen the movie, but the book, oh, the book … It’s almost unbearable, it’s that good (won the National Book Award for fiction). I’ve read it several times.
For writers looking for a lesson, here it is: Styron followed the adage write what you know. The novels either take place very close to the author’s birthplace (Newport News, Virginia) or have a very Southern character who reads suspiciously, delightfully, like the person Styron might have envisioned himself to be.
Although he wasn’t. Alexandra Styron didn’t get so lucky in the dad sweepstakes: William was difficult at best (aloof, alcoholic, capricious). In fact, he suffered from depression, though it went undiagnosed until late in his life. (And even here he wrote about what he knew, producing the short, moving Darkness Visible about his diagnosis, treatment, and recovery.) Reviews of Reading My Father suggest the daughter wonders whether Styron’s art is enough of an excuse for his failures as a father, and that’s a conundrum. There have been plenty of authors of sublime books who were, well, jerks in real life (currently, V. S. Naipaul springs to mind). I’ll let you know what I think after I’ve read the memoir; while you wait, you can read one of the novels. 🙂
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