William Styron . . .

. . . has died. Here is more about him.

Styron was one of the truest heirs of that particular strand of American literature best represented by Melville and Faulkner: a brooding meditation on history and race and the inevitable, painful entanglements of our ideals as a nation and people with the sorry shabby facts of how we've actually behaved. Moreover, Styron wrote about these rather depressing subjects while battling clinical depression and an obsession with suicide. A brave soul indeed.

The curious might enjoy listening to the audio interviews here.

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Literature, American literature, William Styron