Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life

Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography

by C. Stuart Chapman

For a biographer Shelby Foote is a famously reluctant subject. In writing this biography, however, C. Stuart Chapman gained valuable access through interviews and shared correspondence, an advantage Foote rarely has granted to others. Born into Mississippi Delta gentry in 1916, Foote has engaged in a lifelong struggle with the realities behind his persona, the classic image of the southern gentleman. His polished civil graces mask a conflict deep within. Foote's beloved South is a changing region, and even progressive change, of which Foote approves, can be unsettling. In letters and interviews, and in his writings, he often waxes nostalgic as he grapples to recover the grace of an earlier time, particularly the era of the Civil War. Indeed, Chapman reveals that the whole of Foote's novels and historical narratives serves as a refuge from deeply ambiguous feelings. As Foote has struggled to understand the radical shifts brought to his native land by modernization and the region's integration into the nation, his personal history has been clouded by ideological conflict. This biography shows him pining for aristocratic, antebellum culture while rejecting the practices that made possible the injustices of that era. Privately and vehemently, Foote opposed George C. Wallace's and Ross Barnett's untenable segregationist stance. Yet publicly during the 1960s and '70s he skirted the explosive race issue. Foote is best known for his dazzling and definitive The Civil A Narrative . Written from 1954 to 1974, the three-volume opus was published during years when the South exploded with racial and political tensions and was forever changed. This biography recognizes that nowhere are Foote's personal conflicts, ambivalence, and outright contradictions more on display than in his fiction. Although Love in a Dry Season , Jordan County , and September, September are set in the contemporary South, they reach no firm social resolutions. Instead they entertain, dramatize, and come to grips with the social, gender, and racial barriers of the southern life he experienced. While showing how Foote's guarded embrace of the South's past and present characterizes his identity as a thinker, a historian, and a writer of fiction, Chapman discloses Foote's reluctance to address burning contemporary issues and his veiled desire to recall more gracious times. C. Stuart Chapman is a Massachusetts State House aide living in Jamaica Plain. His work has been published in the Clarksdale Press-Register , Memphis Business Journal , the Memphis Commercial Appeal , Jamaica Plain Gazette , Modern Fiction Studies , and other publications.

Genres: Biography

317 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 13, 2003

Reviews

[Lane Willson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I blame Doris Kearns Goodwin. Having long worked hard to avoid the abyss that is Civil War history addiction, I loved the movie Lincoln, and my children gave me Team of Rivals for Christmas. I have long wanted to read one biography of every president, and thought this would be a good time to read about President Grant. One day I decided to check out a Youtube video to see if Shelby Foote agreed President Grant’s biographer, H.W. Brands. The battle was lost, and I didn’t even know it had taken place.

So I just finished Shelby Foote: A Writer’s Life by C. Stuart Chapman, and enjoyed it greatly. I think Foote has shown the Southerner how to grasp what is held dear – family, respect, gentility, grace, language, faith by honestly accepting and acknowledging what is horrific. Ignorance, hatred, fear, prejudice, and of course slavery are the burden and shame we bear. Foote seemed to recognize the reality of “the truth shall set you free”.

The first glimmer of Foote’s ability to accept the totality of being a Southerner was first evident in his interviews in Ken Burn’s Civil War. Shelby took sly pride in the superiority of the Generals of the South to those of the North, at least until Lincoln removed McClellan in favor of Grant, and Sherman. At the same time he seemed truly grateful in the war’s outcome and the defeat of the south. He seemed to be able to have pride those aspects of his kinsmen worthy of admiration, and at the same time be embarrassed and ashamed at the rejection of that very grace in the form of slavery and hatred.

I've surrendered completely, and will soon start on Foote’s Civil War: A Narrative: Volume One: Fort Sumter to Perryville. I blame Doris Kearns Goodwin.

[Jake Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shelby Foote embodied much of what makes Southern culture so complicated and complex. Foote had a love/hate relationship with the South’s past and how that impacted the present and the future. Seeing the mistakes and racism of the past, Foote spoke out against racism in his day but often retreated into a safe zone. Like so many of us who are native to the South, we often find ourselves in a place of two different worlds and trying to reconcile them.

I enjoyed this biography. The author spends too much time devoted to minute details of Foote’s novels and that can be difficult to get through. However, I appreciated the candor in which he deals with the successes and failures of Shelby Foote.

Pick this up and give it a read!

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I'm something of a slow reader (which is to say I have at minimum 14 different books I'm juggling recently at a time sadly so my attentions just spread a bit thin) so this took me about a month straight to read or so. You may wonder why I wanted to read a whole book about this man when I 'bought' one of his books (there was a sale on used books, I got one of his for free on a basis of, 'hm, that's a really familiar name but I Swear the guy from that documentary was a man and this sounds like a woman's name' and it was fucking huge and I've had dreams of using it in self-defense), haven't read it, and don't plan to. Really, like many other people, I heard him in Ken Burns documentary, have had an interest in the civil war my whole life, looked into his other work and was like, 'oh what the hell? how the hell is anyone calling this guy a real historian?' I also then saw many images of him from earlier times in his life and watched interviews of him because, yes, he Is indeed quite racist and just has shitty opinions on things in general, but there was something absolutely fascinating, almost enchanting to me, about how self-aware he was of himself and his own bullshit the whole time. I also saw some images of him from some ridiculous photoshoot or something when he was in his 40s or 50s and I'll just let you look for those yourself and then if/when you've seen them, I won't tell you what they awakened in me but I'm sure you can gather, Something. But I wondered, haunted, 'but Whos actually wrote about this guy?' And well there are indeed some specificass books in this world.
Needless to say, I have enjoyed it thoroughly. Does it get some dates wrong every so often? Are some of its facts very dubiously true because they rely heavily on hearsay and anecdotes? Oh Yes, but you know what else that's on some level true of? Shelby Foote's Writing Itself. There is another layer to this that I thoroughly enjoyed which was the fact that, in writing about the life and writing of an unreliable narrator, that was exactly what C. (what does it stand for? I've yet to find out but I'm really curious. Started calling him 'Chad Stuart Chapman' through it) Stuart Chapman Became. I started this book blissfully unaware of who Walker Percy and the Percy family was. Chapman doesn't seem to see what I see in a lot of this which is that Dear Christ, whatever Shelby Foote had going on with that man wasn't normal. I actually do not know how to describe it besides, 'If you read through this and think it was, I don't think I'll be able to explain anything to you and I think you have bigger worries.' Also, one might start reading this and think, 'oh dear Chapman kind of sounds like he hates this guy. haha clearly that'll. change, though, right?' hm. not really. This is by no means a bad thing I have to say. My only wish is that it came out a few years later, after Shelby Foote died, but of course one needs that Boston University PHD right. Anyways, unfortunately, I'm now so interested in whatever the fuck the. Distressing Southern Gothic Percy Family B Plot was that I need to read Jay Tolsons Pilgrim In The Ruins which inspired this.
Would I say this book is objectively right and factual? I would say that, yeah, generally, but I'd also say that This Is Shelby Foote, a lot of the information in this book comes from him, but a lot also comes from people who know him. This may sound like the other people are trustworthy but if you know anything at all about the Percy family, or Walker in particular, you come to quickly understand that's not quite the case, and you may ask yourself, 'how could someone Be more unreliable than The One and Only Shelby Foote?' and you will have found the answers to your questions after reading this. So take everything in here with some salt for flavor. But also like, does it need to be? Look Within Yourself, ask Yourself, why Does this book about Shelby Dade Foote Junior Need to Be true? This is a man famous for his 'My feelings don't care about Your Facts' takes.
Anyways, above all else, this was incredibly fun to read when I'm someone who just absolutely loves reading about people I really hate but am also really, really interested in. Halfway through I had a dream I was walking in what seemed like an endless library with no windows and every so often, a table and/or chair somewhere. There were other rooms every so often like kitchens or living spaces, which looked like they'd maybe been lived in once, and seemed to be very mid 20th century, but were abandoned decades ago. I felt like I was looking for something, planning to steal it, before realizing he was here. I heard Shelby Foote's voice from somewhere else, knowing someone else was here, making some joke about how he won't be paying alimony after death. He was in a room, book-lined like all the rest, with a table, several chairs, a typewriter, and a single window that looked out into a vast space that seemed purple and the color you see (or rather lack thereof) when you close your eyes. We had a surprisingly nice conversation but he kept answering most questions I asked him evasively and eventually just said I could have his 'journal', a very old-looking, large book of all the thoughts he'd ever had when he was alive, and look through it. I left with it, saw my brother for some reason, told him to never tell anyone he saw me with that guy, and then woke up. I don't know what any of this means, take this as a warning or an advertisement.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shelby Foote is the author of the phenomenal and voluminous The Civil War: A Narrative, which clocks in with three volumes and over 1 million words. It took Foote 20 years to complete.

Prior to Ken Burns' The Civil War, the nine-part series on PBS, few people knew who Foote was, as he had toiled in relative obscurity as a writer. The series changed all that. Foote's extensive knowledge of the war, and his ability to wax poetic, churning out stories/anecdotes made him the star of this documentary, and Foote became the nation's expert on the Civil War and a caretaker of its history.

I discovered this biography at the Maine State Library while looking for something else.

Chapman's biography captures the complexity of Foote the writer, but more important, the human being. Writers are often lionized for what they write, but more often than not, little is known about the person behind the narrative.

Foote was first and foremost a novelist, bringing a sensitivity towards narrative and storytelling to all he wrote, including his Civil War magnum opus that he'd forever be associated with.

The story of Foote's life revealed a man who remained ambivalent about his beloved South. Chapman does a good job of weaving elements of Foote's geneology rooted in plantocracy that ruled the South during the pre-Civil War days of the 19th century, as well as the changes that came to the South, like the Civil Rights movement, which Foote served as a bridge between.

The long friendship between Foote and Walker Percy was an intriguing aspect of Chapman's book, as well as Foote's lifelong fascination he maintained with Faulkner, whose ghost is always looking over the shoulder of any southern fiction writer.

[William Sargent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read a biography of Foote and I very much liked his three volume history of the Civil War and his appearance on Ken Burns' TV series on the war. For that reason and also his friendship with Walker Percy I wanted to know more about him. As an aside, the author went to school at Rhode's with my youngest daughter.

It is well written and interesting and I would give it good marks.

[Drew Norwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is unfortunate that, as far as Shelby Foote biographies go, this is the only show in town. Stuart Chapman formed a thesis about Foote and then proceeded to squeeze as much as possible into his mold. The book is full of this sort of overweening psychoanalysis. Thankfully, this doesn't ruin the whole book and you can still trace the path of Foote's life in this biography.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although he is best known for his participation in Ken Burns "Civi War" documentary, Shelby Foote is also the author of a number of novels, and his three-part history of the Civil War.

Not a great biography, but a good one.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding biography on Foote, focusing heavily on his writing process and correspondence with Walker Percy. Great insight into a flawed but brilliant mind.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will probably irritate Shelby Foote admirers by noting that although Foote was a fearfully gifted writer whose military history of the Civil War will be read for decades, Foote himself was an egotist, a man innocent of significant ideas, and one who often squandered his talent through misdirection and episodic indiscipline. Fittingly, it was the medium of television that made him a millionaire and allowed him to adopt the persona of a Southern gentleman.

Chapman treats Foote's flaws honestly, but his biography is overly detailed and overly chronological. For instance, I found myself flipping pages through longish descriptions of Foote's second-rate fiction. Chapman writes well enough, but unlike his subject, he has a tendency to litter his prose with trivia instead of using details as illustrative examples.