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In Search of Willie Morris: The Mercurial Life of a Legendary Writer and Editor

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Willie Morris was many things, but how he ended up said less about him and more about the culture from which he sprung. By that I mean the South can take a heavy toll on its sentient sons and daughters. Larry L. King provides us with Willie's story in fine fashion but does miss that ineluctable truth- to use a favorite word of Morris'. Now let me say a thing or two about this Mississippian whose work I have read in full.

I would like to defend Willie Morris against two types of readers. There is the one kind who sees him as a defender of the South and another who remarks only upon his descent from the literary heights. He did do both, but that was only part of his odyssey.

Morris wrote North Toward Home, perhaps the finest autobiography produced by the last of the southern gentleman. The book holds no punches and reflects unflinchingly on what it means to be both southern and American. It should be required reading for everyone here in these United States. We might be a better country for it, and you cannot say that for many books.

After that work, Willie didn't come close in his writing efforts. However, North Toward Home endures and will endure. Most big time editors cannot say that, and I am struck by how the famous folks who surpassed him- Halberstam, for example- have never written anything on the level of North Toward Home. The Best and the Brightest is a fine book, but it is a far remove from literature. North Toward Home reminds me of C. Vann Woodward's comment, "all historians are failed novelists." A last gentleman as well, Woodward could write those words from the marrow of his bones. Our present age is too literal for that to still ring true, but it does in Morris's case, even if it be autobiography, not history per se.

Finally, a word about Willie's last years. Yes, I heard him called a drunk. I grew up only about 75 miles from Oxford in the Delta town of Tunica. His alcoholism didn't cut much ice with me, though. After all, Faulkner was called the same. You would be hard pressed to find a southern writer worth his salt who didn't have a fondness for the bottle. Maybe Willie was more fond than some, but I bet Faulkner would have drunk him under the table- even if they never actually met. My hunch is Willie had said it all and then some in North Toward Home. There wasn't much more for him to say. That would be a tough burden, especially if you were the genius Morris was. Even Faulkner didn't produce much quality after his torrid pace in the late '20's and early '30's.

Moreover, Willie came home. He may not have been the finest teacher, but his influence on Oxford, Ole Miss, and Mississippi was enormous. He inspired Donna Tartt, wrote about Chucky Mullins, assigned pretty coeds Pery's "The Moviegoer", and helped put Square Books on the map. Yes, indeed, Willie's legacy endures. For my money, despite his lack of material fame and fortune, "the bitch goddess success", that his peers may have gained, Morris did as well in a larger sense, if not better.

RIP, Willie, and thanks from a fellow Mississippian.

I would like to thank Larry King for introducing me to my former brother-in-law, Willie Morris. (If that sounds a little bizarre at first blush, it will seem less so to those who read Larry King's book.) I always liked Willie and respected him for his achievements, but I never had any illusions that I really knew him. While I was aware of most of the "facts" -- albeit after they had passed through some dubious filters -- that was clearly not enough to understand Willie Morris. Larry King supplies many of the missing pieces, and he does so with frequently lyrical prose, wit, and keen insight. Those who want to know about Willie Morris and his times should read this book and "North Toward Home," sparing themselves the subsequent "dueling autobigraphies" of Willie and Celia Morris.

Larry King accurately captures the famous Willie Morris charm. I learned about it first hand in one of our rare private moments. Willie told me that he had never had a brother and was looking forward to the experience. Although I was aware at the time that this probably wouldn't really work out, I was quite taken by this gesture to the "kid brother." After all, I was certain that however our relationship evolved, it HAD to be an improvement over having an older sister. Meanwhile, I was already impressed that he had been a baseball player and that my parents clearly didn't really approve of their daughter's choice of husbands. Thus, his "charm offensive" certainly worked on me and apparently on many others as well.

King also explores Willie's dark side at some length, but does so sympathetically. At the minor end of that scale, King notes Willie's propensity for isolating himself from the outside world, ignoring letters, messages, or other forms of contact. I understand better now why ne never responded to the occasional notes I sent him complimenting him on this or that piece that he had written. (My wife had somewhat better luck.) At least I learned from Larry King that I was in good company and, in retrospect, don't take it as personally as I did at the time. As Larry King makes clear, Willie had much more serious problems to worry about.

As good as the book is, I have to wonder how broad an audience it will attract. (Of course, the question is somewhat academic at this point.) To be sure, Willie Morris achieved much, especially in the early part of his life, and he certainly rubbed elbows with the famous and powerful. Moreover, there has always been a Willie Morris "cult" -- or, more precisely, cult(s) -- that will dutifully read the book. Still, in the grand scheme of things, that is a relatively small and somewhat rarefied audience. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that, I think Mr. King may have missed an opportunity to introduce a broader audience to Willie Morris. That is too bad because Willie has indirectly affected many people who have probably never heard of him. In that vein, I think that Larry King's basic conclusion that Willie Morris should be remembered mainly for his literary contributions is wrong. Instead, I think Willie should be remembered primarily for those whose careers he helped nurture, including Larry King himself. For example, in martial arts, the measure of a master is the skill of his students. Without extending the metaphor too far, to the degree that Willie Morris helped make it possible for David Halberstam, Larry King, and others to create their magical works and reach wider audiences, we should all bow to his memory. The world owes him a debt. THAT should be Willie Morris' legacy.

To readers in Mississippi and throughout the South, Willie like Elvis doesn't need a last name.

I first learned of and became a fan of Willie Morris when in the 70's I read his mid life memoir of sorts, North Towards Home. It was one of those books I never forgot. I was less impressed with Morris'later works, especially New York Days.
( Boy talk about industrial strength name dropping. But I digress. )

In this book, Morris' long time friend Larry King provides a lot of info about Morris, his carrer, his friends and enemies, his ups and downs, his affairs, etc. While it is an informative and enjoyable read, it is kind of streange in that the author in many instances seems to abandon his "search" for Willie to indulge in a search for himself since he was so close to Morris. That may be a not unacceptable price for the reader to pay to get the huge number of intimate insights into the life of someone who was nothing if not over the top interesting.

As with any such book, there are places where detail gets out of control and scanning is in order, but they are minimal.

Willie Morris, warts and all, will always be remembered fondly by Mississippians as someone who never lost his love for the state ( and its considerable number of "warts" ).

You might have to be a Mississippian to really enjoy the book, but then again you never can tell. Definitely worth a spin.

This is a biography of a life that might have come off the pen of Eugene O'Neill. Willi Morris was a mississippi native who made it big as a writer of a couple books well known in the American literary community, and was head of Harper's magazine for a critical few years.

From this peak of power he degenerated into a life of drinking and womanizing until finally settling down as nominally a college professor back at Ole Miss.

Larry L. King (not the TV host) has written this biography to show Willie Morris as a friend, a genius, a writer and editor of some fame that is now largely forgotten. At the same time, it shows some of the weaknesses, the troubles that made his own life unpleasant.

Willie Morris was one of those people that don't quite reach the highest rungs of the ladder, but come very close, only to fall back down. He was an assist, friend and mentor to many of the best writers of our time.

I didn't discover Willie Morris until shortly after he died. After reading North Toward Home and New York Days, I gladly would have traveled across the continent to meet him. Few persons are born with as much charm, and fewer still are born with as much intellect. Now Larry L. King has brought Willie back to life in the pages of a generous and understanding biography. You won't find a better opportunity to revel in Willie's company one more time.

I got about halfway through this book before I realized that the Larry King who wrote it isn't the loveable talk show host, but this other writer who was close to Willie Morris back in the day when the Mississippi-born writer was editing Harpers magazine back in the 1960s.

Poor Willie, he might have chosen his friends with more care, for this one certainly came around and bit him in the ass as we say on Long Island, where I first encountered Morris' writing through his kids' book MY DOG SKIP.

For King seems determined to cast Willie in a bad light all the way through, and not a page goes by without him reminding us that, for all Willie's personal brilliance, he never fulfilled his early promise, and that for much of his life he was a bad father and husband, and also that he was one of the worst drunks ever in a profession filled with drunks.

King resorts to all kinds of folksy locutions such as, "Of course Willie wouldn't be Willie without celebrating with a drink." Authors who say "of course" should re-think the whole sentence. If we knew it already enough to agree "of course" then don't say it. And if we didn't know, why "of course"? It's just lazy writing.

King celebrates Morris' four year reign at HARPERS and his stellar track record in publishing THE ARMIES OF THE NIGHT by Norman Mailer and THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST by David Halberstam and many pieces by Styron (and apparently thousands and thousands of Larry King's own words) while asking us to consider the time when it comes to judging Morris for his editorial failures, such as publishing the work of so very few women and also for printing the controversial, hateful 1970 article by Joseph Epstein condemning homosexuality, in which Epstein wrote, "If I had the power to do so, I would wish homosexuality off the face of the earth."

King adds some cute stories such as Willie living in the Hamptons after being fired from Harpers, and being too drunk to buy a new gas cap after driving off without it one day, so he stuffed a Long Island potato into his gas tank instead! This was in the middle of his affair with the Southern beauty Barbara Howar who drove Willie crazy with her other affairs, including taking up with Herb (A THOUSAND CLOWNS) Sargent and Larry King, not the talk show host but the author of this book and THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS. He took Barbara Howat to his own wife's funeral! What a cad, and yet he's constantly on Willie's case blaming his drinking for the sad downturn of his life and the way he could never find happiness.

Also his mother, is revealed, was a perfectly strange, alienated, possessive woman who attempted to embroil Willie in every little detail of her life, smothering him with the "silver cord." I wound up ewnjoying the mother's appearances in this book, as it gave the book a little zing. It was sort of like GREY GARDENS except with just one woman instead of a mother-daughter team.

All in all this book is firmly recommended for those who would like to know more about the author of MY DOG SKIP (and adult books too like THE GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI and NORTH TOWARD HOME). Just be prepared for warts, warts, and more warts.

Larry L. King's tribute to his pal and editor, Willie Morris, far from being hagiographic, is replete with the bumps and bruises of Morris's life. Unlike Morris's own accounts found in North Toward Home and New York Days, King explores the shadowy side of the famed editor's life and details the toll exacted by whiskey and the temperamental personality that Morris could never quite tame. While not a glowing account of the writer's life, this memoir preserves the romantic tale that Morris had already spun in his own works, but completes the picture by expanding upon aspects that Morris only hinted at, such as his marital estrangement, hard financial times, and the refusal to engage in diplomacy to save his dream job as the editor of Harper's magazine after only four years at its helm.

King doesn't include himself in Morris's circle of closest friends, reserving that space for James Jones, William Styron and a few others. Nevertheless, he was clearly a confidant over a space of thirty or so years, and seems to know his friend as well as anyone. He has drawn extensively upon contributions by Morris's first wife, Celia, his son David Rae, many friends, and the woman who is widely credited as saving Morris's life, his wife of the last ten years of his life, JoAnne Prichard. The result is a well-narrated story that any of Morris's fans will revel in, being the first book that might be viewed as telling "the rest of the story".

Insights include the problematic relationship between Morris and his mother, the doomed-from-the-start marriage to Celia, and the difficulty Morris experienced in getting on with life after his separation from Harper's. In spite of these issues, the overall tone of the book is one of admiration and true friendship. One of the highlights is the ample space given to Morris's decade at Old Miss as writer-in-residence throughout the eighties. This era of his life was the homecoming to the land of his birth and is no less colorful than the tales of Yazoo City, Austin or New York.

Fans of Morris will find this volume indispensable to understanding and appreciating one of the bright stars of America's literary constellation during the latter half of the twentieth century.