RIP William Styron
I really liked the three books I read, including his thin memoir on depression, Darkness Visible. I saw him speak a number of times and he always struck me as having come from a different era, from a time when folks took literature and ideas seriously and were ready to do hard battle over both. He also knew how to live, as the following blurb from the Chron's obit attests-

After the Styrons settled in a Connecticut farmhouse and began raising a family, he developed a routine he stuck to: sleep until noon; read and think in bed for another hour or so; lunch with Rose around 1:30; run errands, deal with the mail, listen to music, daydream and generally ease into work until 4. Then up to the workroom to write for four hours, perfecting each paragraph until 200 or 300 words are completed; have cocktails and dinner with the family and friends at 8 or 9; and stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning, drinking and reading and smoking and listening to music.