Katherine Anne Porter: The Life of an Artist

by Darlene Harbour Unrue

From the moment Katherine Anne Porter arrived on the American literary scene in 1922, the public was intrigued with her life. Yet she herself revealed only scant facts of her background and often gave conflicting accounts. She maintained, though, that a germ of her own experience lay at the core of everything she wrote.

In Katherine Anne Porter: The Life of an Artist, Darlene Harbour Unrue finds that Porter's deceptions were a screen for deep personal turmoil. With unprecedented access to archival and personal papers, Unrue brings much new information to light. Porter's maternal grandmother was institutionalized; Porter had more marriages than she acknowledged; she lost babies to miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth, and she grieved over her failed motherhood. Ever present were her fears of exile and insanity.

Despite these constant fears, Porter (1890-1980) lived an extraordinary life that vaulted her from poverty and obscurity to wealth and the fame of being a best-selling author. She experienced or observed many of the major events of the twentieth century. So often on the move, she lived in Greenwich Village during its heyday as a hotbed of radical politics and experimental art, in Mexico during the cultural revolution of the 1920s, in Europe during the rise of Nazism, and in America during the Cold War. Thirteen years old when she first rode in an automobile and saw an airplane, she was invited in her last decade to observe and write about the launching of the final Apollo space ship. Asked to summarize her own life, Porter was fond of quoting Madame Du Barry: "My life has been incredible. I don't believe a word of it!"

Darlene Harbour Unrue is a professor of English at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. She has written several books on Katherine Anne Porter, including Understanding Katherine Anne Porter and Truth and Vision in Katherine Anne Porter's Fiction.

Genres: Biography

381 pages, Hardcover

First published September 7, 2005

Reviews

[Anne Wellman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This comprehensive, well researched biography perfectly captures the enigmatic Katherine Anne Porter, author of the superb 'Ship of Fools' - now sadly less read. Porter was a notorious fabulist, difficult to pin down as to the actual facts of her amazing life, but biographer Darleen Harbour Unrue gets to the bottom of it all. Beautiful and talented Porter wrote prolifically and was a Pulitzer Prize winner. She travelled all over the world, had multiple husbands and lovers (most of them far younger) and lived a long and complex life punctuated by ill health and the tragic loss of her children through miscarriage and stillbirth. This more than competent biography by Unrue draws it all together, warts and all, without resorting to the novelization that creeps into less professional biography - no supposition, no imputing of thoughts or feelings to the subject without a documented basis. There is necessarily a period in any author's life when that life consists of a series of sequestrations to write, and Porter was no different, but Unrue avoids the potential tedium and keeps the reader interested. Unrue also avoids any in-depth analysis of Porter's fiction, leaving readers wanting to find out for themselves. All in all both a tribute to a remarkable literary talent and an exemplary piece of biography.

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

To refer to Prof. Unrue as a friend is a bit presumptive, but she and I have been working on the Porter selections for the HEATH ANTHOLOGY lately, and I admire this book a whopping lot. It's more cultural and more balanced than Joan Givner's 1982 biography (which got a bad rap for leaning too heavily on "exposing" Porter's more imperious side). Porter led an extraordinary life: 90 years, 5 marriages, several continents and lovers (usually younger men), an array of literati (Allen Tate, Hart Crane, Andrew Lytle), a very complex sense of politics. In the end, she was not especially prolific: 27 stories, a single novel, lots of nonfiction ephemera. Darlene covers it all, and its a tribute to her sense of pace that 90 years goes by in 381 pages without any fallowness or undue summary. A model of what a good biography can be.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first book club book of 2007, and I must say I picked a good one. Porter, a Texas native, lived an amazing life. Her biography is unlike many other literary bios I've read--she lied throughout her life (Unrue was the first to determine that she was married 5 times--Porter only admitted 3), constantly travelled, and we never quite determined when she found time to write. I'll definitely be checking out Ship of Fools at some point.

[Diane Mueller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed learning a bit about Katherine Anne Porter after a while this book just started to drag. I felt naming every husband, lover and possible lover grew old. It was interesting to learn more about her background and her life in Kyle, Texas. Now I need to make the time to read some more of her writings to see how she brings her life story into her stories.

[Raelene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous biography. Comprehensive and clearly-written, but even better is that it totally sucks you in. I started reading just sections for a research paper and, 20 minutes later looked up to breathe at the end of the chapter. Porter is a fascinating woman and Unrue has truly done her - and her incredibly diverse life - justice.