The Life of William Styron And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. -ECCLESIASTES 1:17-18 William Clark Styron, Jr. was born to Pauline and William Clark Styron, Sr. on June 6, 1925 in Newport News, VA. Pauline was shocked and excited to have given birth to her first-born …showed first 75 words of 1038 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1038 total…eories for the sickness include his intolerance for alcohol, the possibility of a family history of the illness, and characters in his early writings that embodied symptoms remarkably alike to those he had now developed. In 1990 Styron published Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, describing his time of depression and the healing process that eventually occurred. His most recent book was published in 1993, entitled Tidewater Morning: Three Tales from Youth. Styron is still alive today.