Here is a posthumous collection of 14 of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist William Styron’s (Sophie’s Choice, The Confessions of Nat Turner) essays: The title piece treats his relationship with John F. Kennedy; pieces on Truman Capote, James Baldwin, and Terry Southern, and yes, some personal meditations are also included. Michiko Kakutani correctly assesses:

…most of the essays in this slender volume—which serves as a kind of bookend to the author’s 1982 collection, This Quiet Dust—are personal reminiscences that open windows on different periods of Styron’s life while shedding light on his ambitions and inspirations as a novelist.