William Humphrey (writer)

William Humphrey (June 18, 1924 – August 20, 1997) was an American novelist, memoirist, short story writer, and author of literary sporting and nature stories. His published works, while still available in French translation, have been largely out of print until recently. Home from the Hill and The Ordways are available from LSU Press. In 2015 Open Road Media published the complete works of William Humphrey in digital form.

Of significant interest to readers of Humphrey are Wakeful Anguish, A Literary Biography of William Humphrey by Ashby Bland Crowder as well as Far From Home, Selected Letters of William Humphrey edited by Crowder; both available from Louisiana State University Press.

William Humphrey was born on 18 June 1924 to Clarence and Nell (Varley) Humphrey in Clarksville, Texas, a region that is culturally southern rather than western. His parents were poor and uneducated, and they moved from house to house because they were unable to keep up with the rent. His father eventually owned and operated an auto repair shop in Clarksville. By the 1950s Humphrey had escaped his origins: he was thought of as a member of the glittering literati of the northeast, and Vogue magazine featured him in its “gallery of international charmers among men,” along with Marlon Brando, Sir Edmund Hillary, Leonard Bernstein, and John F. Kennedy. But Humphrey thought little of such “honors” and took no opportunity to capitalize on such chances at fame. He preferred to retreat to his desk and write, thinking any recognition should come from his writing. Unlike such celebrities seeking contemporary figures as Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, and despite his profound desire to be remembered for his literary contributions, Humphrey made very little effort to promote himself. John Williams, born just two years earlier in the same Texas town, experienced the same neglect as Humphrey after the initial praise of his novels. Recently, however, the New York Review press republished Williams’s 1965 novel Stoner, and his reputation has soared. Perhaps a similar renaissance awaits William Humphrey.

The central event in Humphrey’s childhood was the death of his father in a car wreck when the boy was thirteen. His memoir Farther Off from Heaven, published in 1977, is a moving account of this event’s effect on him. He and his mother, Nell Varley Humphrey, moved to Dallas because there was no work for her in Clarksville. Humphrey attended Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas (perhaps at the Austin campus since his papers are archived in their library), but was never graduated. He left Texas as soon as he could.

While John Williams joined the army and fought in World War II, Humphrey failed the eye test because of color blindness, left Texas first for Chicago and then for New York City with his play Ambassador Ben in hand to see if he could become a Broadway success. This was in 1945. The play was never performed and never published. But Humphrey did begin to write stories and left New York City to find a quieter place to write in Brewster, New York. There Humphrey worked on the farm belonging to Donald Peterson, the producer and director of The Ave Maria Hour on WMCA radio. Humphrey published his first book of stories, The Last Husband and Other Stories, in 1953.

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