RIP William Styron

[Xsportschick]

NEW YORK - William Styron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Confessions of Nat Turner” and other novels whose explorations of the darkest corners of the human mind and experience were charged by his own near-suicidal demons, died Wednesday. He was 81....
more at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15521076/

:'( :'( :'( :'(

EDIT:
NYT's ... William Styron, the novelist from the American South whose explorations of difficult historical and moral questions earned him a place among the leading literary figures of the post-World War II generation, died yesterday on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where he had a home. He was 81.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/books/02styron.html?ei=5094&en=f6306789f9329ef1&hp=&ex=1162530000&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1162444281-3jzRmnTfY3q5H8nXfyW6BA

 

[21]

What a loss.

May he rest in the peace he never found during his lifetime.

 

[Blitz]

Bill Styron was a good friend of deceased southern writer Willie Morris, who often mentioned Styron with great affection.
He influenced Curtis Wilkie, too, from the South.
Styron wrote about subjects many of us claim to understand and have an opinion on.
Too few actually are able to make educational observations, though. Not enough delving is done by writers and reporters into social status and the history of race relations.

 

[The Big Ragu]

This is bizarre. I was really depressed yesterday. Like really depressed. Like weeping for no reason depressed. I couldn't control it. I haven't felt that inexplicably down in so long. A friend of mine who is an occasional visitor here, talked to me, and pointed me to the thread from a week or two ago, that linked to the New Orleans column by Chris Rose, in which he talked about his depression. In the column, Rose mentioned Styron's memoir, "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness," which apparently recounts Styron's descent into and recovery from depression. I didn't know a whole lot about Styron, other than "Sophie's Choice," so I did some googling to read up about his life. I did all of this, not knowing he had died, or was about to die. In fact, I hadn't thought about William Styron, in any way shape or form in at least a dozen years, perhaps not since the 1980s. I made a mental note to hit the book store and see if I could find a copy of his memoir.

After all of that, it was a bit spooky seeing the news that he had died. Someone I hadn't given any thought to in a long, long time, and I spend part of my day thinking about him. And then he dies that day. What are the odds of that?

 

[Duane Postum]

Confessions of Nat Turner is really something, despite the controversy that surrounded it.