BOOK REVIEW: 'In Search of Willie Morris' is Larry L. King's Rollicking Tribute to His Often Exasperating, Supremely Talented Friend
Reviewed By David M. KinchenHuntington News Network Book Critic
Hinton, WV (HNN) – To those who think that a search for a past golden age is an exercise in futility, I point to the four years from 1967 to 1971 that Willie Weaks Morris was the top editor at Harper’s magazine.
Willie Morris, recruiting writers like Norman Mailer, William Styron, Gay Talese, David Halberstam, John Corry, Marshall Frady and many others, turned the nation’s oldest magazine -- founded in 1850 – into the kind of must-read publication that many consider today’s Vanity Fair or The New Yorker to be. But it was much more to those of us – like the present reviewer – who were just beginning our journalism careers in that era. My start in journalism was influenced by editors like Morris and writers like Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese.
Morris (1934-1999) was a supremely talented Mississippian who was – like novelist and fellow Mississippi native William Faulkner – much too fond of the sauce, according to Larry L. King (“Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”) author of a memoir/biography entitled “In Search of Willie Morris: The Mercurial Life of a Legendary Writer and Editor” (PublicAffairs, $26.96, 368 pages, illustrated, indexed).
Texas native King, a friend of Morris for decades and a staff writer at Harper’s during Morris’ tenure at the magazine, pulls no punches in his description of his friend. King never lets us forget that he also was an abuser of alcohol for many years, like so many of the writers of his generation.
When Morris precipitously decided to resign his editorship in 1971, King urged that he compromise with the Minneapolis, MN-based Cowles family that then owned the magazine, telling him in no uncertain terms that “Unless you own the mill, you ain’t nothing but a mill hand. And you don’t own the mill.”
This is excellent advice to anyone who works for a newspaper or magazine – or any other boss. Needless to say, Morris didn’t take the wise advice of King and – despite modest successes and authoring modest books that I love such as “My Dog Skip” and “My Cat Spit McGee” – only in his last nine years did Willie Morris regain the prominence he had as Harper’s editor. Much of this was thanks to the stabilizing influence of his second wife, JoAnne. More about that later.
The current Harper’s editor, Lewis H. Lapham, figures in the saga described by King. Lapham, a wealthy young man who never had to worry about paying the rent – King’s characterization -- stayed with the publication when most of the talent pool left and was rewarded a few years later with his current post.
Poignant in the extreme is Larry L. King’s account of Willie Morris’ friendship with James Jones (“From Here to Eternity,” “Some Came Running”) whose heart problems were exacerbated by his alcoholism and whose death in 1977 left a void in the life of Morris that was never really filled.
This is a riotous work of remembrance that has more than a little of a “Page Six” style gossip column as King describes the complicated relationship both he and Morris had with socialite Barbara Howar, which led to a comic fistfight between the two writers and a temporary breach of their friendship. King says many of Willie Morris’ problems stem from his mother, a secret drinker who was overbearing, constantly critical of her “golden boy” son and not very secure socially in a southern gothic setting in Yazoo City, Mississippi that valued such things.
The relationship with Howar – after the end of Morris’ marriage to Celia Buchan – whom he met when both were students at the University of Texas-Austin in 1956 -- and before his marriage to JoAnne Prichard, resulted in a best-selling book by Howar, “Laughing All the Way”, and a so-so novel by Morris based on the life of North Carolina-born Barbara Dearing Howar called “The Last of the Southern Girls” that at the time made her very unhappy. Most critics thought her’s was the better book and it certainly sold much better.
During a decade as writer in residence at the University of Mississippi from 1980 to 1991, Morris mentored such future writing superstars as John Grisham, Winston Groom (“Forrest Gump”), Barry Hannah and Donna Tartt.
This might have been a time when Willie Morris could have been the editor of, say The New Yorker, but it was yet another opportunity missed by Morris, King suggests. One explanation offered by King is that from an early age Willie Morris suffered from clinical depression, certainly made much worse by his excessive drinking. The current editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, is a skilled writer, but he concentrates on being an even better editor. He’s a mill hand who doesn’t have to be reminded that he ain’t the owner of the mill!
I’ve never read such an interactive memoir: Larry L. King asked for and received input from surviving sources such as Howar; David Rae Morris, Willie Morris’ son with Celia; JoAnne Prichard Morris; Hannah and others as to the truth or fiction of incidents. Many of the dust-ups – such as the one more than 15 years ago with Barry Hannah and his band of motorcycle-riding merry pranksters – seem to have been exaggerated by Morris. JoAnne Prichard Morris comments in the book that it’s wise to remember that her late husband was a writer and writers love to embellish and dramatize events.
JoAnne Prichard, who married the decade older Willie Morris in 1990, was the best thing that ever happened to the writer, King says. There is universal agreement on that point. She provided him with love and companionship and helped him cut down on his drinking; nobody could make him stop. The nine years they had together was also the most productive period of his life, more than any other, with books such as the dog and cat ones previously mentioned; “My Mississippi,” “New York Days,” a memoir continuing the events of his acclaimed 1967 memoir “North Toward Home” and several other works. As a cat person, I admire “cat woman” Prichard, who brought Spit McGee into her husband’s life and opened his eyes to the virtues of felines.
The filming in Canton, Mississippi (standing in for his hometown of Yazoo City) of the movie version of “My Dog Skip”, starring Kevin Bacon as his father, Rae Morris, Diane Lane as his mother Marion and Frankie Muniz as the young Willie, was avidly followed by Morris, who was impressed with Jay Russell’s direction and the talented cast, King says. The film was released in 2000 and I enjoyed it when I saw it that summer in the San Fernando Valley. His long-awaited novel “Taps” was published in 2001, two years after his death.
Larry L. King’s book “In Search of Willie Morris” deserves wide attention; it’s fun to read and provides a critical look at Willie Weaks Morris, a writer and editor whose work and influence should never be forgotten.
Publisher’s web site: www.publicaffairsbooks.com