William Styron: A Life

Often thwarted by writer's block despite his literary successes, Styron had his most fortunate failure, West notes, when, late in 1985, the novelist, in deep depression worsened by dependency on the tranquilizer Halcion, tried to compose a suicide note. ""He wanted to write a document of eloquence and dignity, but... [i]n extremis, words had failed him."" Although West's biography (his first) begins so worshipfully as to be off-putting and continues with a largely irrelevant genealogy going back to the Viking warrior Styr the Strong in A.D. 700, the workmanlike, low-key narrative proceeds then to evoke the author of Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie's Choice and, more recently, Darkness Visible. In the postwar generation in which he was first seen as a Southern gothic inheritor of Faulkner, Styron (b. 1924) emerged as an original, residing well north of the Mason-Dixon line and becoming best known for the striking Holocaust novel Sophie's Choice, in which the heroine is, paradoxically, Polish and Catholic, and no scene is set inside the death camps. For the texture of Styron's life and the sources of his characters and situations, West, Distinguished Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, is authoritative. However, he is sometimes less assured when he strays, alleging, for example, that the workaholic Anthony Trollope wrote only one hour a day; misplacing Ebenezer Howard's Garden City movement in both time and country; and labeling U.S. (and U.K.) involvement in the Korean War (in which Styron was recalled to duty) ""immoral."" Authorized lives of living subjects are delicate challenges, but West brings off his biography well, covering events from Styron's unpromising beginnings to literary elder statesman attempting to cope with his fame. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)