The Book on Willie Morris
He was known as a merry-eyed glad-hander, a good ol’ boy who launched his career as the influential editor of the Daily Texan and the Texas Observer.
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Back in Austin, Willie took over as the editor of the Texas Observer. Starting in the mid-fifties, Willie had written for the liberal and iconoclastic paper, which had been founded by Ronnie Dugger in 1954. With Willie in charge, the Observer’s readability improved. Nobody could fault the hard work Dugger had put into his job, but his prose was as wooden as a kiddie’s sword, and personally, I judged him to have a sense of humor on a par with that of a firing squad. Willie, on the other hand, charmed and made friends of just about everyone he met. Jack Bales wrote in his fine book Conversations With Willie Morris that "he courageously covered events that the mainstream press seldom bothered to cover, such as unsanitary conditions in nursing homes, … illiteracy, the social ineffectiveness of the death penalty, racial discrimination, and the political shenanigans and skulduggery of Texas legislators." After reading Willie’s reporting on the Legislature, no less than Norman Mailer said that "neither he nor anybody else need bother with the subject further."
Willie enjoyed much of his work, especially drinking with and exchanging friendly barbs with some of the legislators he most often excoriated. He spent time with such young Texas writers as Billy Lee Brammer and Bob Sherrill at a time in their lives when all seemed possible. Still, running the Observer was the hardest job Willie ever had. He wrote thousands of words per week, edited copy, laid out the paper, trucked it to the printer, stood by to make changes or corrections, then trucked the product back to the Observer’s hole-in-the-wall office for distribution. After two years as the editor, Willie resigned, exhausted.
NEW YORK
He left Texas to join his family in Palo Alto, where Celia was seeking a master’s degree in English at Stanford University. She was none too happy in California, where too many students threw Frisbees to their dogs instead of starting revolutions; he jangled around quite without purpose. Jack Fischer, the editor in chief at Harper’s, rode to Willie’s rescue. He wrote to say that he liked Willie’s work and that he would like to establish a Rhodes tradition at his magazine. Was Willie interested in coming aboard as an associate editor? Willie joined Harper’s in May 1963.
He took to New York immediately. "The Big Cave," as he called it, excited him, drove him, made life "pulsate." Willie soon began to travel to Washington to seek political pieces. I then worked for Congressman Jim Wright of Fort Worth, so we began to hang out. Over the next year I regaled Willie with inside tales of colorful congressmen and of a freewheeling LBJ. "Larry, now, you simply must write that for me," Willie almost invariably said. Such encouragement helped me find the guts to quit my job in May 1964 for the risky business of freelancing. During the next six years, I would publish 26 pieces for Willie and Harper’s.
When John Cowles, Sr., of the Minneapolis newspaper family bought the magazine, in 1966, he edged Fischer aside and promoted Willie. Very shortly Willie would hire four writers—myself, David Halberstam and John Corry of the New York Times, and Marshall Frady, a freelancer living in Atlanta—as contributing editors. I was the group elder, at 38, and also the hoo-hawing, two-handed drinker, apt to do damn near anything without warning.
I knew a semi-bawdy song, "Jesus on the Five-Yard Line," that Willie many times asked me to rise and sing in various settings; I did so without shame or talent. On a visit to New York to talk over pieces I might write, I found myself in Willie’s office with three holdovers from the Fischer regime. Suddenly Willie said, "Our new contributing editor, Mr. King, has asked to open the meeting with his favorite song." I stared at Willie, astonished. He kept a straight face, so I rose and sang, giving cheerleader gestures at the proper places:
Oh, the game was played on Sunday,
In Saint Peter’s back yard.
Jesus played right halfback
And Moses played right guard.
The angels on the sidelines,
Christ, how they did yell
When Jesus scored a touchdown
Against that team from Hell.
Stay with Christ,
Stay with Christ,
Jesus on the five-yard line,
Moses doin’ goddern fine!
Stay with Christ,
Stay with Christ,
HOKE ‘EM, POKE ‘EM,
JESUS, SOAK ‘EM!
Staaaay with Christ!
Wellsir, the aftermath set a new record for thunderstruck silence. In all the years I had performed my specialty song, I had been cheered, jeered, threatened, and bought drinks by strangers—but never had I performed to such a deafening silence. "Thank you, Larry," Willie said and then went on to talk business while I sat there feeling like the fifth-place jackass at the county fair.
When the others left, Willie doubled over in glee: "Did you see their faces?" Only later did I realize there had been a method to Willie’s madness. He had hoped to ease those editors out and replace them with livelier and better people and, certainly, having me sing that song told them that the Morris administration perhaps would not be their cup of tea. Soon all three were gone.
It didn’t take long for the literary world to take notice of what Harper’s was doing. Morris got William Styron to write "This Quiet Dust," a lyrical essay about the Virginia countryside where Nat Turner led a slave revolt, and later printed a chunk of Styron’s novel The Confessions of Nat Turner. He made Norman Mailer a near regular in Harper’s, devoting almost a full issue to Mailer’s "The Steps of the Pentagon," which won a Pulitzer prize as the book The Armies of the Night. The former small-town Mississippi boy owned New York. He was ubiquitous, popping up everywhere with everybody who was anybody. And surely Willie might often be found at Elaine’s, the East Side watering hole of the literati, where he would preside over a table including, say, Mailer, George Plimpton, Gay Talese, Edwin "Bud" Shrake, and Elaine herself. There was a social tinge to all this, but Willie also considered it business. "I troll Elaine’s for writers," he said. "Some of my best Harper’s assignments are given out there."
And if all that wasn’t enough, in 1967 the 32-year-old prodigy published his memoir, North Toward Home, which won the Texas Institute of Letters’ Carr P. Collins Award for the best work of nonfiction and was called by the London Sunday Times "the best evocation of an American boyhood since Mark Twain." Yessir, ol’ Willie was drinking mighty heady wine … until the bottle broke.
There had been signs for more than a year before Willie’s Harper’s reign ended, in March 1971, that all was not perfect in paradise. One William A. Blair suddenly appeared as the business manager of Harper’s. Privately, John Cowles, Jr., had told Willie to consider Blair his "superior," but I thought Blair just another horsepucky-babbling business-side type. When Blair began openly referring to himself as "the boss," I diplomatically told him, "You’re not my boss. I’m not a damned accountant. Willie Morris is my boss.”
None of us realized the extent to which Willie and the Cowles family were on the outs. We knew that something was amiss, didn’t feel right, but our trained eyes told us that nobody—not Esquire, not The New Yorker, not The Atlantic Monthly, just no-by-God-body—was putting out a better magazine.
Halberstam’s keen nose got the first whiff of trouble. He talked with me about Willie’s being harder to reach than usual and that Willie had a dangerous notion in his head: that he was, himself, Harper’s magazine. Willie resentfully spoke more and more of being "harassed" by the Cowles family. When we tried to quiz him about the specific problems, however, he would only say, "Don’t worry. Everything’s under control."
Well, that simply wasn’t true. To start, Willie’s personal life had spiraled out of control. He and Celia got a far-from-amicable divorce in 1969 and for years didn’t speak except through lawyers, friends, or by letters that read like grand-jury indictments. Willie often claimed, before they split up, that the problem was Celia’s "slavery" to "shrinks and analysis"; Celia felt that Willie showed no interest in her intellectual development. Neither was without fault, and alcohol had become a true problem for both. But only Celia ever admitted to alcoholism and worked toward recovery. Still, alcohol was becoming an increasing problem for Willie. Halberstam tried, without success, to talk to him. I didn’t talk to Willie about heavy drinking because I too was in denial about my own galloping alcoholism and would remain so for another dozen years.
Tensions at the magazine increased. John Cowles, Sr., complained about its New Journalism. Halberstam felt some backlash from Junior Cowles after he wrote an article about the architects of the Vietnam War. Jack Fischer wanted Willie and his "wrecking crew"—as he privately called us—to fail grandly. I see too that what came to be called the "generation gap" and the "cultural war" played large roles in that old Harper’s split.
I skipped into Harper’s offices at 2 Park Avenue on March 1, 1971, light of heart as always when visiting Gotham, only to find editors Bob Kotlowitz and Midge Decter sitting in a fog of gloom, looking as if their dogs had died. "There was a big fight in Minneapolis," Kotlowitz said. "Willie has drafted a tough letter of resignation, with no room for compromise. If he mails it, he’s through."
I tried to talk Willie out of mailing the letter, but he was fueled by a powerful anger: Cowles, Jr., Blair, and three other executives had raked him for almost four hours, criticizing what Willie published and blaming him for a stagnant circulation. The next day, I complained to Willie over lunch that Junior Cowles had not returned a phone call I had made to him. Willie gave a sly half-smile. "I guarantee he’ll call before this day is over," he said. I studied him and said, "Damn you, Willie, you mailed that tough letter, didn’t you?" Yes. Airmail special delivery. I sighed and said, "Willie, we’re screwed." Willie shook his head and disagreed. I told the waitress to make my next drink a double and to step lively with it, please.
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