North Toward Home

I read Morris's charming little book about his boyhood, MY DOG SKIP, about ten years ago and rather enjoyed it. That book led me, if a bit belatedly, to this more comprehensive memoir, NORTH TOWARD HOME. The book is divided into three distinct parts: his boyhood and youth in Yazoo City, Mississippi; his college years in Texas (UT Austin) and his years as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford; and his early years in the publishing world, with Harper's Magazine, in NYC.

In order then, I was quite charmed by the first part and could relate easily to his descriptions of a small-town childhood, then high school and the English teacher he tried hard to impress, telling of how kids made fun of her seriousness about literature and books. "She had little show more patience with the slow ones, or the ones who refused to work, but for those who tried, or who performed with some natural intelligence, she was the most loyal and generous of souls." This description matched that of my own HS English teacher here in west Michigan back in the late fifties. Morris even tells of how the kids tried to "cheat," by reading the Classics Comics versions of the books assigned, rather than the real thing. That was a ploy still used in my own wayward high school days.

Part two, the college years in Texas, began to drag very quickly, as soon as Morris gets involved with the college newspaper and seems to lose his way in details of Texas politics, the governors and board of regents and the whole "good ol' boy" system then holding sway in Texas. I began skimming here, and skimmed through most of the middle section. Perhaps the high point of the Texas section was a quote attributed to a young liberal politician who came within 25,000 votes of being elected governor. This candidate, who is not named, says: "Any man who can get the money necessary to be elected Governor of Texas doesn't deserve to be Governor of Texas." If I hadn't known this book was published over forty years ago, I'd have sworn Morris was thinking of Dubya himself.

After his college years, when Morris finally arrives in New York, things picked up considerably and he told much more interesting - to me - anecdotes about authors, publishing and the whole literary scene through the 1960s in the Big Apple. Morris has much to say here about his friendship with the writer, Ralph Ellison, who called his craft a "stern discipline." From this, Morris makes his own comment that "A young writer's work rests in a very real way on his own private ego - on his own personal faith that what he has to write and the way he writes it are importan in themselves, important to his own time and to future generations. Why else subject oneself to the miseries of writing." Well, said, Willie. Why indeed?

I know that Morris did go on to quite an illustrious career in writing and publishing world, but this book, while it has its bright moments, came off as just a little too uneven. The Texas part in particular seems dated and tedious. But I'm still glad I read it. Truth be told though, MY DOG SKIP was a better book - and made a sweet family film too. show less

Willie Morris autobiography about the three place that molded his life. First was Yazoo City, Mississippi where he grew up. Growing up he was exposed to the racism of his day and the Southern charm as long as one was white. Second place was Austin, Texas and the University of Texas where he saw a different side of life. The end desegregation, the rise of LBJ during the 50's and 60's. Third was New York City where he started working for eventually Harper's magazine. Each place leaving it's mark on him.

This is a memoir by Willie Morris covering his childhood in Yazoo City, MS, his tenure as editor of the University of Texas paper, his time as editor of the Texas Observer, & his time at Harper's Magazine in New York.

I have connections to a lot of this - my mother's family is from Mississippi (Eupora, MS). I was a little girl in Austin for the brief period my father was there in graduate school for his MFA. This period is most notable for me because I learned to read there. I did part of high school in Dallas (& found it just as creepy as Willie Morris did). & I always wanted to run away to New York (instead I ran away to the West Coast & haven't stopped being glad I did).

I've read & re-read this book several times in my life & show more different pieces of it struck me in different ways. Reading it as a college student living away from the South for the first time I felt the sense of exile keenly - all the things that are different, all the things that you miss, all the things that you don't miss.

This time I was once again fascinated by the politics, particularly the Texas politics which were a precursor for later American politics. Reading this time I made a mental note to go look for Lyndon Johnson & the American Dream by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I've been told repeatedly that it's worth reading & I really ought to get to it.

Morris writes well & his attempt to come to terms with being a liberal from the South living far from home is an interesting one. Throw in his friendships with folks like William Styron & Richard Wright it makes for interesting thinking. show less

4178 North Toward Home, by Willie Morris (read 18 June 2006) Last month I read a memoir of Willie Morris which made me want to read this 1967 book of his. It tells of his boyhood in Yazoo City, Miss., and his tumultuous time at the University of Texas and as editor of the Texas Observer. Some of this is told in his later books--the superlative My Dog Skip (read 13 Jan 2003) and in his novel Taps (read 18 Aug 2004). The account of the Texas years are heavy on Texas politics, and are some out of date now, but is consistently interest-holding. The third part of the book deals with his years in New York as editor of Harper's from 1961 to 1967. He is so conscious of Mississippi it almost hurts, and much about New York he does not like, show more though he does not talk about his work. He became a better writer in the four previous books by him I've read, but this book foreshadows so much which makes his writing so poignant. show less

A memoir of a boy coming of age in the South during a period of tumultuous cultural, social, and political change. Morris chronicles desegration and the rise of Lyndon Johnson in Texas in the 50's and 60's, and New York in the 1960's, where he became the controversial editor of Harper's magazine. Walker Percy wrote, " a touching, deeply felt and memorable account of one man's pilgrimage.

Perhaps the most influential book of my young adulthood, one that I felt compelled to share with others.