Publisher's Synopsis
William Carlos Williams: An American Dad is made up of seventeen biographical sketches by William Eric Williams plus "A Letter to My Father on His 100th Birthday" by Paul Herman. It approaches Williams through everyday things such as gardening and baseball, and goes into some detail about his immediate family members. There are over sixty photos. In this fresh and intriguing biography/memoir, William Eric Williams reveals the true character, the actual pecularities of the daily life of an iconic American poet, "the man I remember, my father and my colleague as a doctor." In seventeen vivid sketches William Eric approaches his dad through such everyday things as the house, food, cars, baseball, gardening, money. His candor about his father's love and admiration of women, the "Girls" in his life, will startle and delight the reader. With quotations from intimate family letters and diaries, we get a penetrating portrait of WCW in relation to his imperious artist mother, his elegant and hardworking English father, his handsome, gifted architect brother, and especially his indispensable, "tough as nails," much loved wife, Florence or Flossie, who made everything possible. Paul Herman Williams, the younger brother of William Eric, also contributes a vigorous and charmingly detailed remembrance, "A Letter to My Father on His 100th Birthday," and grand-daughter Suzanne Williams Sinclaire writes movingly on living with Poppops and Nana as a child. Many rare photographs, from the archives of the family and libraries and museums, accompany the texts.