SOURCE: “Wright Morris: Author in Hiding,” in Western American Literature, Vol. XXV, No. 1, Spring, 1990, pp. 3-14.

In the essay, Crump analyzes the significance of Morris's image, in his memoir, Will's Boy, of himself hiding under a porch as a psychological key to Morris's work as a photographer, and to his narrative strategies as a novelist.

In Earthly Delights, Unearthly Adornments [hereafter abbreviated as EDUA], Wright Morris presents a telling portrait, or at least thumbnail sketch, of the artist as a young child, and he repeats it at the start of Will's Boy [hereafter abbreviated as WB], the first of his three volumes of memoirs: “The small creatures of this world, and not a few of the large ones, are only at their ease under something … in the Platte Valley of Nebraska, street culverts, piano boxes, the seats of wagons … the dark caves under the front porches were all...