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Writing My Life: An Autobiography
The renowned author revisits the places and key moments in his life, evoking his encounters, friendships, marriage, travels, and especially, his experiences as a writer
- GenresMemoir
484 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1993
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About the author
Wright Morris
135 books34 followersWright Marion Morris was an American novelist, photographer, and essayist. He is known for his portrayals of the people and artifacts of the Great Plains in words and pictures, as well as for experimenting with narrative forms.
Morris won the National Book Award for The Field of Vision in 1956. His final novel, Plains Song won the American Book Award in 1981.
Morris won the National Book Award for The Field of Vision in 1956. His final novel, Plains Song won the American Book Award in 1981.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 28, 2020
Wright Morris was one of the great, albeit largely unsung, American writers of the 20th century. In this leisurely stroll through his personal past, Morris gives us an unusually fine-grained account of his life, beginning on the Nebraska plains, and later following him to Chicago, rural Texas, Vienna, a medieval Austrian castle, Mussolini's Italy, southern California, Mexico City, and the Philadelphia suburbs, with occasional excerpts from his fiction that demonstrate precisely how his fiction was shaped by his many life experiences. It was a remarkably rich life, with a terrific cast of characters, ranging from his peripatetic father to a mentally unbalanced European nobleman to the great anthropologist and essayist Loren Eisley. I've already read several of Morris's novels, but after really getting to know him through this book, I will undoubtedly be reading many more.
January 2, 2018
This exhaustive memoir chronicles the entire life of writer, Morris Wright. It reads as a historical fiction novel, only it’s a memoir. About the process, Wright comments, “The faculty of image-making, of time retrieval, to which he has given the labor of a lifetime, is now at his disposal to make his own likeness. In this image there may well be more of a conscience than a resemblance. The emotions generated in this act of repossession may also exceed those he felt at the time, evidence that the past is never so much a part of the present as at this moment of recovery. If there is the risk that something of what he recovers will prove to be more trivia than treasure, it is one he has often run as a writer. He dips into his own life, as into others, at his own peril” (255). I found the writing to be very masculine, if there is such a thing, and thus it took me a great deal longer to finish this tome than I expected. I cannot recommend it highly, but I can recommend it to those who are seeking to write about their own lives as a matter of exploring an author’s style.
May 18, 2010
"Nothing in my experience of such memoirs is quite like it."
—David Madden
"It is written with such verve and zest that I bow down."
—Wallace Stegner
"Morris is very much alive to the comic possibilities in his father's life and his own childhood — but like a good Westerner, he prefers to tell the story with a straight face. He is even more aware of the serious possibilities of life, but what really interests him is the growth of awareness. The book begins in a kind of imagism — the random impressions of a small boy — and gradually becomes clear and narrative and orderly as the boy grows up. Despite the very different kind of childhood described, the book has much in common with Henry James's Notes of a Son and Brother and much with Wordsworth's Prelude."
—Noel Perrin, New York Times
"Why do we read with such relish if the author doesn't grow or even react to his experiences all that dramatically? Because of the details. A washer attached to a pipestem, 'green as the bit in the mouth of a horse,' that enables a train conductor to talk without removing his pipe from his mouth; the bright red earmuffs worn by the chauffeur of the Austrian castle's master; an acquaintance's suit worn so thin at the knees that his underwear shows through when he is seated — such details, recalled from half a century ago, are set down as in an intricate still life composed with deadpan humor. The more you look the more you see, and the more you see the more you delight."
—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
—David Madden
"It is written with such verve and zest that I bow down."
—Wallace Stegner
"Morris is very much alive to the comic possibilities in his father's life and his own childhood — but like a good Westerner, he prefers to tell the story with a straight face. He is even more aware of the serious possibilities of life, but what really interests him is the growth of awareness. The book begins in a kind of imagism — the random impressions of a small boy — and gradually becomes clear and narrative and orderly as the boy grows up. Despite the very different kind of childhood described, the book has much in common with Henry James's Notes of a Son and Brother and much with Wordsworth's Prelude."
—Noel Perrin, New York Times
"Why do we read with such relish if the author doesn't grow or even react to his experiences all that dramatically? Because of the details. A washer attached to a pipestem, 'green as the bit in the mouth of a horse,' that enables a train conductor to talk without removing his pipe from his mouth; the bright red earmuffs worn by the chauffeur of the Austrian castle's master; an acquaintance's suit worn so thin at the knees that his underwear shows through when he is seated — such details, recalled from half a century ago, are set down as in an intricate still life composed with deadpan humor. The more you look the more you see, and the more you see the more you delight."
—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews