Blog #95; On Meeting William Styron, Author of Sophie’s Choice, and reading his Widow Rose Styron’s memoir, Beyond This Harbor

I had the good fortune to get in contact with Mr. Styron right after he had written Darkness Visible,

which had had both a soothing and an earth-shattering effect on me. If an excellent writer such as

Styron had survived mental illness, and written so lucidly and candidly about it afterwards, couldn’t it be

possible for me to recover and give voice to my experiences? I wrote him with praise which I had hoped

was understood as sincere, and I especially thanked him for pointing me in the direction of Mozart’s

Simphonia Concertante in C major. He agreed that it was a wonderful piece of music in his return

postcard, which came a couple of weeks later. He said he would be happy to talk about Mozart and

many other things when he visited Orlando to speak at my Alma Mater, UCF, courtesy of Don Stap, a

respected poet in the English department. I told him when I met him on that Orlando stage that I felt a

real kinship with Stingo, and he replied he did too. We laughed about that. The next day he met with

some grad students for a Q and A, and as I was teaching classes at UCF at the time, I was invited by Dr.

Stap to come too. In private, I thanked Styron for his advice about a number of things about mental

health. When we talked, he was very sincerely concerned for my well-being, and he made me promise

him I would stay away from certain medications. We corresponded for some time after that, and I

gradually became more healthy and as that happened my writing improved, but I lost touch with Mr.

Styron.

Fast forward over thirty odd years. I live in Utah now, have for over eleven years, and I’ve married, and

have two step sons that I consider as close as blood. For Father’s Day this year, my wife gave me the

recent memoir written by Rose Styron. I knew William Styron had passed years before, but I never

heard how he was doing toward the end. Now long out of touch with most in the literary world I had

the chance to find out more about this unique author in his wife’s book. I knew that one of the things

that kept me from excelling in literary circles was that I had chosen a lifestyle that was not considered

“artistic”. I had found out, for myself, a long time ago, that intimacy is best shared with one person in

an exclusive, committed, married, relationship. Call me old-fashioned, but it becomes a matter of

quality of life, one almost approaching the divine in its elevation and emotional depth.

What struck me most about the book by Rose Styron was the courage with which she showed the true

horror and the depth of pain that comes with dealing with mental illness or with being a loved one who

deals with someone with mental illness. It was a hard burden on her and her family when William

Styron, towards the end of his life, finally wrestled with his spiritual demons in nightmares and in waking

hours. These passages were deeply moving and reminded me of the honesty and psychic pain

expressed in Darkness Visible. The fight is palpable. I understand from my own experiences that I don’t

share publically that it is sometimes torture almost beyond measure. Dealing with mental illness and its

after effects is very much like a grenade that goes off in the center of the family. Nothing is ever quite

the same.