Rose Styron

I wanted to read this book because I had met Rose, who's a friend of a friend on Martha's Vineyard, playing Scrabble with them. Recently, over Scrabble, I told her I was amazed at all the details she remembered; of all the people she had met over a remarkable life - their conversations, in minutely described locations all over the world; even the clothes they had worn. I asked if she kept journals, and she said no; that when she had worked with Amnesty International she was told to memorize any notes she had taken and then to destroy them. Such a memory, which she said had just poured out of her brain to the page as she wrote during the three years of the pandemic - just like automatic writing.

For me, the most moving and beautifully written parts of the book were her personal descriptions of what living with Bill Styron was like, especially during his depressions. She said much more of the original book was personal, but for the sake of length she had had to omit those sections. This was good to hear, as I found it a little too full of name-dropping - although when that was your life, it feels begrudging to criticize!… (meer)