In these stories - never before published in book form - William Styron focuses his unmatched talents on matters that have preoccupied him during much of his adult writing career. Although their immediate subjects are different - a young Marine about to invade Japan in World War II remembers the role his father played in building one of the ships; a child recalls what happened when a former slave came home to die in the place where he was born; a boy describes the hot summer day on which his mother died, changing his life forever - the stories are told in the voice of the same narrator, who remembers vividly his youth in a tidewater town in Virginia. A Tidewater Morning is written with the power and distinction of a writer who occupies a preeminent place in modern American literature.