North Toward Home, by Willie Morris

Willie Morris takes us through three stages of his early life in his memoir North Toward Home (1967). The title is ironic in a mild sense. Though it might seem to express a rejection of the South and the land of his youth, instead it recognizes that in his adult life the North where he works and lives is the modern world and his present time, whereas Yazoo City, the place of his birth and youth, is the past.

Three sections organize the book: Morris' memories of his early days and adolescence in Yazoo City; his days as a student at the University of Texas followed by his work as an editor for the Texas Observer and his take on Texas politics (including LBJ); and finally his work in New York City as an editor for Harpers Magazine. The last section of the book is the least detailed and specific, and the least satisfying, and in it Morris takes every opportunity to editorialize on the harsh impersonality of life in "the Cave," the Big Northern City.

A Southern defensiveness pervades the book. Partially the result of when it was written—the late 1960s—Morris is careful to insist that the old South he describes is one he no longer is a part of, that he has grown beyond. This is especially the case in his treatment of racism and racial issues. On occasion, on a New York commuter train, he assures the person sitting next to him that he is not only a Democrat but a liberal Democrat. If he admits he is a Southerner, he is careful to make clear the kind of Southerner he is.

The best part of the book is the first section, where he describes growing up in Yazoo City, the people he knew, life with his parents, girls he dated, teams he played for, a radio station he broadcast for, and the rise of the civil rights movement. It is difficult to know how to read this section. Morris clearly presents himself as a racial liberal, someone who embraces racial equality and civil rights, yet he writes about his early life--how he and other boys played tricks on black people, for instance, and his interactions with various black residents of the town--without apologizing for his actions. I think he feels the fact that he grew up, changed his ways and attitudes, makes the difference. Morris describes his early life the way it was, the way he lived it, so as to place his development as an adult, a white Southern liberal, in contrast.

Many modern Southerners have had no experience living in a small Southern town, and Morris's recollections of his youth in Yazoo City give a vivid picture of the life in the 1930s—the racial divisions, the social strata, those days before television and the advent of the modern. His account of how the town reacts when a group of African Americans circulates a petition is especially interesting—the townspeople meet together and decide to fire all the people who signed the petition. Most of the fired people leave town to find work elsewhere.

The most interesting elements of the middle section, which concerns Morris' college days at the University of Texas and his early experiences as a journalist, are his descriptions of Texas politics. This section is marked by humor and satire, and some of the descriptions of Texas legislators are outright hilarious.

Morris is at his best when he is describing rather than sermonizing. He is intent on demonstrating his own progressivism. This is not something a Southern journalist would feel a need to do in 2007, but perhaps Morris felt the need in 1967—to justify himself, to make clear his own position in contrast to the rest of the South. The defensiveness at times is a bit smug. Morris' ability to dredge up precise details and descriptions from his early days in Yazoo City provoked my skepticism—there may be some invention going on in this book. It is probably invention that leads to a treatment of his subject that is more or less true in spirit if not in the precise details.

Morris often mentions Thomas Wolfe in this book. He clearly admires the North Carolina writer, and the admiration shows in his prose, which, though not as florid as Wolfe's, does have an over-exuberance.