Reading My Father

A Memoir

By: Alexandra Styron

Narrated by: Alexandra Styron

Alexandra Styron's parents—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sophie’s Choice and his political activist wife, Rose—were, for half a century, leading players on the world’s cultural stage. Alexandra was raised under both the halo of her father’s brilliance and the long shadow of his troubled mind. From Styron’s youth and precocious literary debut to the triumphs of his best-known books and on through his spiral into depression, Reading My Father portrays the epic sweep of an American artist’s life. It is also a tale of filial love, beautifully written with humor, compassion, and grace.

©2011 Original material by Alexandra Styron. Recorded by arrangement with Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (P)2011 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

“Readers passionate about American literature will be fascinated by Alexandra’s insightful tales about her complicated father and his circle, which included Peter Matthiessen, Norman Mailer, and Arthur Miller.” ( Booklist)

Mesmerizing family saga about a brilliant author!

Bill Styron stands as a giant of American letters. His youngest daughter, Alexandra (also a writer) discovers her challenging father through his writing.

Reading My Father: A Memoir

In the mode of Susan Cheever's memoir of her father, Styron's work offers a threaded narrative off her life, her father's life, and her research for the memoir. Of course, the most interesting parts have to do with pere Styron, especially his early years of literary success. The daugher's insufficently aknowledged privilege becomes annoying at times. but she's a good writer.

Comparison

I read her mother’s autobiography first and it was interesting to compare. Both terrific and full of anecdotes and contemporary events. Wife versus daughter POVs quite different but both balanced and fair.

A Gripping Account

This is a superb biography and you don't even have to be a Styron fan (I'm not) to find it fascinating. The daughter's portrait of her very troubled and demanding father manages somehow to maintain a loving quality within its excoriating account of Styron's bad bargains with his muse. He was clearly a charismatic man, someone who had many famous friends and well-wishers, but he was also demonized by his creative gifts and often unable to connect with his devoted family. The book is beautifully written and the author, who for years trained as an actress, is a very skillful reader.

Styron on Styron -awesome combo

I have loved all of William Styron's works and this was a beautiful and loving look at the man himself - warts and all. Didn't realize he was so debilitated by depression even though I head "Darkness Visible" - I liked every minute of it and am glad I bought it.

Author as reader

What did you like best about Reading My Father? What did you like least?

The author, Styron's daughter, writes a compelling story. While I understand an author wanting to

What did you like best about this story?

Her perspective

How could the performance have been better?

Using an experienced person

Did Reading My Father inspire you to do anything?

no

Any additional comments?

no

Like her father, she can write

Alexander tells a story of family life centered around brilliant father who felt he was entitled to abuse of his daughters and wife. His writing drained his patience and goodwill and did not suffer fools

William Styron Ranks...

as one of my favorite authors, and his Sophie's Choice as one of my top five all-time favorite books, and so I approached this memoir with much anticipation--and expectation. And Alexandra Styron (much like Susan Cheever in Home Before Dark) proves to be a penetrating and moving biographer of her very complicated and often disturbed father. From his long-standing marriage to his absolute devotion to his work to his tendency toward spiraling depression and bouts with alcohol (read his own account of this in Darkness Visible: A Memoir Of Madness), Alexandra renders a portrait of her father that is at once objective but also tinged with the obvious love and devotion that she felt for her famous father. Highly recommended!

Engaging and honest. An intimate portrait!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

This book is immediately engaging and gives an intimate view of a troubled and brilliant outspoken man. Real name dropping abounds, but not in a "I knew this person, you didn't" kind of way. The people who visited their house were the who's who of this generation of writers. Tom Stoppard, Norman Mailer, Peter Mathieson, among others.

What did you like best about this story?

This is a story told from the point of view of a young girl and daughter, who was at times terrified, and enthralled with her father. It was an intimate portrait of a family dealing with mental illness, but also, one of a family struggling to hold together, to understand a man who was hard to live with.

What about Alexandra Styron???s performance did you like?

Her terms of endearment, only a daughter could write like this. I could feel her fear, pride, horror and amazement with her Dad, the man, the writer, father and husband to her mother. She had good pace, and was able to use voices to make the telling more interesting. I really enjoyed her voice and the openness of the writing, it felt as though you were going through it with her, walking along beside.

Fascinating story, beautifully read

I loved this audiobook: the story it tells of William Styron's complex life alone would have been worth the price of admission, but hearing it from his daughter's point of view made it even more intense, more poignant, more complex and human. One of the best biographies of an artist and a parent I've ever read.