A Tidewater Morning

Three longish short stories really show off Styron s remarkable talents These stories are piercingly honest tales of his memories of childhood He was traumatized at the age of 10 by his mother s agonizing battle with cancer, and the parallel disintegration of his father s emotional health These events no doubt shaped his life The first story yields singular insight into the mixed emotion of the young marine s desire to go to battle any young man can relate The second is of an old black man who a [...]

Many people say they are going to write a novel Most of us never get around to it Some teeter on the edge but then, somehow, still don t get around to it A few of us, like me, are pushed I was pushed by William Styron Strange for an Australian to say but it s true Sophie s Choice blew my mind and stayed with me for a long time The only way to get rid of it, actually, was to write my own novel I wanted in some small way to affect a reader the way he did me That was my aim and still is.Recently I [...]

Published in 1993, I ran across this book on my shelf and realized I had never read it A slim volume of three long short stories, I was by no means disappointed All three stories involve recollections of youth by the narrator as he grew up in the Tidewater area of Virginia In the first a young Marine, trained to kill, and outwardly anxious to enter combat, silently acknowledges his relief to find out that his unit will not take part in an upcoming invasion The second story recounts an episode in [...]

This is a lovely book The stories are supposedly fiction but I expect there is a fair amount of autobiography in them They are really rich in character and place, transporting me to the south pacific engagement of young marines in WWII to the coastal waters of Virgina the depression era and into a heart of racism and reality of the time and space I ve always been interested in Styron because of his book Sophie s Choice But having seen that movie, I simply could not read that book So this is an i [...]

The way Styron is able to grab my attention and keep it, even when I m not reading his book, is like no other I simply love his writing, his descriptions, and his views towards the world Although his books are not my favourite of favourite, his writing always comes to mind when someone mentions a favourite author This one took me a while to get through, due to school and other engagements, but it has impacted me greatly, as with his other works that I have read Recommend from the bottom of my he [...]

Not so sure this book rated this high of a rating Three short stories that at times I struggled to get through I found that the author had a habit of using really big words words that I never heard of before let alone knew the meaning of This was especially true in the last story which most of it was told from a 12 year olds point of view I can t see any 12 yr old using that type of language nowadays let alone in 1938.

This was a re read, and I am so glad that I decided to do so Styron is one of the most gifted writers of the 20th century, and the three stories in this book are woven together around themes of loss, war, race and the power of memory to bring us to tears Set in the Depression and World War II, the memories of Paul Whitehurst enable us to travel to the Pacific Theater and feel the crushing anticipation and memories of a Marine awaiting battle The reader is taken to rural King and Queen County dur [...]

There is an excellent sense of both place and time in these three stories, fictionalized accounts of different periods in the author s life in Tidewater Virginia I decided to read the book after seeing the movie Shadrach which is based on the middle of the three stories But the story I liked best was the third, the title story, A Tidewater Morning It tells of one morning in young Paul Whitehurst s life as his mother lay dying of cancer Styron had an amazing vocabulary and the ability to create i [...]

I frequently forget what a great writer Styron is This unique, poignant book is made up of three parts of a life and a time in Virginia s tidewater coast Each part could be it s own short story but all three together make a complete novel, no matter how short War, death, family, slavery reflect a boy s life It examines the simple complexity and complex simplicity of living Styron is truly a writer s writer Beautiful and stunning.

3 short stories from the author s life From what I can gather from the details, Styron grew up in Hilton Village in Newport News, but I need to verify The 2nd story, Shadrach, is what compelled me to pick up the book in the first place Shadrach is an ex slave who travels back to Virginia to die on the land he was born on.

Ugh Reading this book is like a taking a big lungful of stale, dead air.

I came to absorb the history of the Virginia Tidewater that primordial American demesne where the land was sucked dry by tobacco, laid waste and destroyed a whole century before golden California became an idea, much less a hope or a westward dream I realized that the Dabney farm must have been as nondescript and as pathetic a relic as any of the scores of shrunken, abandoned plantations scattered for a hundred miles across the tidelands between the Potomac and the James My husband and I share a [...]

An excellent read by the author of Sophie s Choice, this book includes three long short stories, tied together by the same narrator, Paul Whitehurst Whitehurst is likely the thinly disguised author himself In the first story, Whitehurst is an 18 year second lieutenant in the Marine Corps, preparing Love Day, the historic World War II landing on Okinawa He experiences both foreboding of the upcoming conflict and remembrance of his days at age 11 with a mother dieing of cancer and a father employe [...]

Fiction, Literary, Classic William Styron is one of those mid twentieth century authors of literary fiction whom I ve always meant to read Tidewater Morning is a novella that I happened to have on Kindle which I had taken with on vacation says In this brilliant collection of long short stories , the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Sophie s Choice returns to the coastal Virginia setting of his first novels Through the eyes of a man recollecting three episodes from his youth, William Styron explo [...]

Love day Shadrach A Tidewater Morning

Great writingI was expecting 3 storiest so much This is brief, although touching Even a short piece by William Styron is wonderful.

I m not sure what was cringe worthy the run on sentences or the flagrant racism Yikes.However, after an insightful book club I found a better appreciation for the stories.

this will be the5th6th styron that i will read storiesa tidewater morning three tales from youth1993 love day was originally published in esquire in 1985 shadrach same mag in 78d a tidewater morning , 87dicated to carlos fuentesa quote on a white page the long habit of living indisposeth us for dying sir thomas browne, urn burialan author s noteories of experience at ages 20, 10, and 13nked by a chain of memoriesof a single placerginia tidewater of the 30separing for warencroaching on a pastoral [...]

This made me think a lot of Confessions of Nat Turner the period is later but it pays similar attention to the inherently destructive, dehumanizing effect of slavery, and to petty humiliations than shocking abuses It s a small scale book, with the main character s life unfolding as a matter of course rather than high drama I should probably read all of Styron.

William Styron fiction that doesn t have some length to it necessarily lacks some of the long, detailed, total involvement a willingness to just let the gorgeous prose flow and flow that I love that said, the three short stories that make up A Tidewater Morning are pretty damned good.The stories, all published in the 1980s and reprinted here as linked tales from the life of Paul Whitehurst, at 20, 10 and 13 years of age, are interesting reflections featuring transformative events in his young li [...]

Styron is one of my favorite authors because he was born in the same town I was and he was the same age as my father I am familiar with many of the places and towns he mentions in his writings and I love his openness and frankness, although most of his writings are not very happy I enjoyed the stories in this book, especially the last one for which the book is named Not quite as good as Lie Down In Darkness, but Styron captures a time gone by so well and in so much detail Highly recommend for hi [...]

William Styron, perhaps best known for his novel, Sophie s Choice, was a consummate story teller, a talent which he demonstrates amply in these three tales All three stories are told from the perspective of Paul Whitehurst, a character who clearly represents Styron himself The first Story, Love Day, is reflective of Styron s war experience not WWII, however And A Tidewater Morning parallels the tragic death of Styron s own mother from a long bout of cancer.Of the three tales, the most successful [...]

I really enjoyed this collection of long short stories, three stories from the different times in the life of the fictional Paul, who apparently is much like the author himself I enjoyed Shadrack the most of them, and I thought the voice and portrayal of the old black man were poignant and rang true I also liked the last story, which seemed to me to ring so true about a family in crisise Great Depression, mother dying of cancer, differences between the life views of the husband and wife, which w [...]

I wasn t planning on reading this book, didn t really even know it existed, but then I saw it at half price books outlet for 1 That low price combined with the books cover, the back, my mood, and the fact that it is a vintage international book I have liked all the vintage international books I have read , convinced me to give it a try.In the end, I was too much of a prude to really love it The profanities seemed excessive, not unrealistic or unwarranted in the context of the book, just in the c [...]

I really enjoyed this book Parts of it were slow a few page here and there but overall it was interesting I liked the concept of three stories in one I felt like I learned a lot about the character author s life and world from this style of writing I especially enjoyed the third section, A Tidewater Morning, for it s description of the parents arguments I know, weird right They almost read like letters At first I thought that was what they were until I realized that the speaker was changing thro [...]

Toujours pr sent en filigrane dans ses uvres, William Styron l est ici au premier degr Un matin de Virginie se compose de trois longues histoires reli es par la cha ne de la m moire Paul vingt ans dans les Marines, Paul dix et treize ans dans le village de son enfance ne sont autres que l auteur, dont l omnipr sence donne chaque tape de la chronique l authenticit d une tranche de vie Par la tendresse et la r volte, l angoisse et le doute qui les marquent, ces r miniscences et ces confidences fon [...]

I read The Confessions of Nat Turner in late 1960 s and enjoyed the book Returning after all these years to the writing of William Styron, I am surprised by how great a writer he was I somehow failed to read any of his other work This is a shorter work being 3 short stories that are linked, but still a great book to read Each of the stories are about coping with death All three stories are told from the point of view of Paul when he is 20, 10 and 13 In the first story, Paul just misses going int [...]

Styron gives us three beautifully crafted period pieces that are fictionalized remembrances from his childhood in eastern Virginia The first is a story from his time as a young officer in the Marine Corp on the eve of the battle of Okinawa The second features the death of a former slave returned to old Virginia to be buried where he spent his childhood The third describes the morning when a thirteen year old boy s mother died after a long illness Profoundly sad, these stories describe a time and [...]

Haven t read Styron in ages Sophie s Choice, Nat Turner, Lie Down in Darkness so found this little tome at John Merrill s A first edition, in fact Three stories, all linked by narrator Paul Whitehurst, and set in the Tidewater area of Virginia, form a small coming of age fictional remembering Paul is a young Marine ready to invade Japan during WW2 then a young bystander at the return and death of ancient former slave, Shadrach, who finds the white trash Dabneys whose ancestors owned his and fina [...]

Three of my now favorite short stories, painted with such clarity and with such finesse of phrase that you ARE Paul Whitehurst, the protagonist, in various stages of his life The themes of childhood memories, social determinism or not , artistic and philosophical inspiration along with a healthy slug of religion rejection and just the way the natural world seeps into your bones blew me away with their accuracy, and humor Nothing polite about these portraits, but they shine They give a perspectiv [...]