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“[Rose Styron] has lived a life in interesting times, among legendary characters, a life well worth telling—and reading about.” —The Washington Post
An intimate portrait of a celebrated magic life and the famous and infamous who dropped in, summered, traveled with, played with, and the decades of friendship with everyone from Truman Capote and Robert Penn Warren to the Kennedys, the Bernsteins, Alexander Calder, John Hersey, and Lillian Hellman.
Here as well are the years of dedication and risk, traveling the world, from Pinochet’s Chile to El Salvador, Belfast, and Sarajevo, as Rose Styron, in search of those hiding from dictators and autocrats, bore witness to atrocities and human rights violations . . .
Styron writes of her childhood, born into a German Jewish, assimilated Baltimore family; a rebel from the start, studying poetry at Wellesley, Harvard, Johns Hopkins; traveling to Rome and her (second) meeting with Bill (the first time, “I can’t remember even shaking hands. I wasn’t thinking about him at all.”); their eventual marriage, and their more than fifty years together—in bucolic Roxbury, Connecticut, and on Martha's Vineyard.
She writes of Bill's writing and of retyping his manuscripts, discussing his writing progress, having babies, with visits from neighbors Arthur Miller; Mike Nichols and various wives; Dustin Hoffman buying the house over the hill; James Baldwin moving in to Styron’s writing studio and writing The Fire Next Time, with Baldwin encouraging Styron to write Nat Turner in first person; Frank Sinatra, sailing into Vineyard Haven Harbor and soon dropping by for dinners chez Styrons; the Kennedys having rowdy sleepovers . . .
And she writes in detail about Bill Styron's full-on breakdowns, his recovery from the first depression; writing Darkness Visible. And fifteen years later, the second much worse crash; Bill Styron’s death; her year of grief, teaching at Harvard; living full time on the Vineyard and making a new full life there . . .
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 13, 2023 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780525659037
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780525659037
- File size: 45359 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 1, 2023
The author of four volumes of poetry; a human rights activist who cofounded Amnesty International USA and chaired PEN's Freedom-to-Write Committee and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Awards; a celebrated hostess and friend to the likes of Arthur Miller, James Baldwin, and the Kennedys; and wife of the Pulitzer Prize--winning novelist William Styron, Rose Styron offers a thoroughgoing memoir of her rich and rounded life.
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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April 15, 2023
The longtime wife of William Styron reflects on her poetry, her work as an international human rights activist, and her vast social network. Styron begins in 1974 while in Chile on an early assignment for Amnesty International, shortly after the American-backed coup that replaced Salvador Allende with de facto dictator Augusto Pinochet. The horrifying accounts she learned during her assignment influenced her life and work for the next few decades. The author then moves back in time to recall her courtship and early years of marriage to William, their expanding family, and their eventual long-term residences in Roxbury, Connecticut, and Martha's Vineyard. These were busy social years, and Styron references an expansive array of prominent names that included leading political, literary, and artistic figures of the day. Peter Matthiessen, Arthur Miller, Philip Roth, and Mike Nichols were among their inner circle; the Clintons, the Kennedys, Lillian Hellman, and Frank Sinatra were part of a wider network. The book takes on more substance as Styron recounts further experiences on behalf of Amnesty in Moscow, Sarajevo, and El Salvador as well as later encounters with political figures such as Fidel Castro. The author offers more intimate reflections when describing her care for William during his periods of severe depression. "I became the scholar of Bill's moods and behavior, too interested and curious to turn off entirely even when I could not reach him," writes the author. "I know that this man I had married was never boring, always brilliant, mesmerizingly mercurial....I realized I must look around the corner to be ready for what was coming next onto our windswept, waterlogged path if health and sanity were ever to return." Throughout her memoir, the author recalls a rich and productive life, but her excessive name-dropping somewhat undermines the strength of her accomplishments and skills as a storyteller. Colorful stories from a remarkable woman's life well lived.COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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