SOURCE: "Styron's Time Past Shows Its Hold on the Present," in The New York Times, September 10, 1993, p. C-27.

In this review of A Tidewater Morning, Kakutani notes Styron's skillful handling of the themes of mortality and evil, but observes that the collection is largely interesting as an index to his earlier works.

A key to what made William Styron a writer can be found in a passage from the title story in A Tidewater Morning. All three stories in the book, Mr. Styron says in an author's note, represent "an imaginative reshaping of real events" in his own life, and in this particular tale, his alter ego, a 13-year-old boy named Paul, tries to cope with his mother's cancer and his father's grief, by distancing himself from the situation.

He focuses on the music playing on the family phonograph, and recalls the headlines of that day's morning paper...