My Generation

“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

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.