My Generation: Collected Nonfiction
William Styron

It Takes One to Know One – The back cover of My Generation features an Inge Morath photograph of William Styron, Ralph Ellison and Arthur Miller. The essays inside the book cover a range of topics – from war and slavery to the South and Vineyard Haven. Styron easily navigates the breadth of his subjects; he was, after all, one of America’s most decorated writers. (Though he never won a Nobel, he did take home the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the American Book Award, the Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the one that really stands out: the Légion d’Honneur. It’s not every author who pockets an award established by Napoléon Bonaparte.) My favorite essays are those in which the acclaimed artist writes about other acclaimed artists he knew and admired: Ellison, Miller, Truman Capote, James Dickey, Philip Roth, Peter Matthiessen, Terry Southern, James Jones, Irwin Shaw and James Baldwin. An impressive generation, indeed.