Willie Morris - North Toward Home (5)

My general take on Willie Morris so far (I'm in the Texas section now) is that here's a small town Southern boy, the Mississippi variety, who fully absorbed the small town Southern culture of the late 40's and early 50's,who went off to the U of Texas rather than go to Ole Miss, and there broadened his horizons (as we like to say), and from there spent 4 years in Oxford, England, as a Rhoades Scholar. He says he took a history degree there, though he doesn't say what degree. From there he became at 32 the editor of Harper's magazine, at that time an annointed literary positon (today it would be nothing). From there he achieved a certain literary prominence publishing several books until his death in 1999 at the age of 64 (killed no doubt by liquor and cigarettes like a proper person of letters). I'd say Willie was a proper literary Son of the South.