William Styron biography

Synopsis

Early Life

William Clark Styron Jr. was born in Newport News, Virginia, on June 11, 1925. While William Jr. was growing up, his father, William Styron Sr., whose ancestors had been living in the South since the 1600s, worked as a shipyard clerk. William's mother, Pauline Margaret Abraham Styron, was born into a long line of Pennsylvanians, and died when William Jr. was just 13.

After his mother's death, William Jr. started rebelling. In order to discipline the unruly teen, his father sent him to Christchurch School, a small Episcopal boys' preparatory school in Middlesex County, Virginia.

After graduating from Christchurch in 1942, Styron began training as a Marines reserve officer and attending Davidson College. The Marines transferred him to Duke University the following year.

In 1944, Styron left Duke to assume active duty, and after training for a year, was sent to help invade Japan as a second lieutenant. Styron was discharged just a month after arriving, when Japan surrendered in the wake of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Early Writing

Back in the United States, William Styron resumed his education at Duke University. During this time, he became reacquainted with his former professor, William Blackburn. Blackburn took Styron under his wing, encouraging Styron's interest in literature and coaching him in his writing. With Blackburn's support and guidance, Styron began writing his first short stories. Styron at last completed his Bachelor of the Arts degree at Duke in 1947. After graduation, he moved to New York, following Blackburn's suggestion that he take Hira Haydn's creative writing class at the New School for Social Research.

In New York, Styron also took a copy writing job with the McGraw-Hill publishing company, but he soon felt that the job drained him of creative inspiration. To his relief, he was fired within six months for his sloppy appearance and for slacking off on the job.

Since his father was providing him financial support, Styron decided to stop working and focus entirely on his writing. The decision yielded successful results; after a summer redeployed, in 1952, Styron published his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, about the collapse of a Southern family. The book earned Styron the Prix de Rome of the Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as a free year at the American Academy in Rome. The summer before his year in Rome, Styron stayed in Paris, where he helped found The Paris Review.

Personal Life

Once in Rome, Styron fell in love with Rose Burgunder, a poet and classmate at the American Academy.