Alexandra Styron on Reading Her Father  By John Meroney    Rex
Bonomelli         What's the most important thing you learned
from your father?     What did your father regard as his best
writing?          Courtesy Scribner          You were somewhat
unaware of the depth of his illness.           Have you changed
your view?       Did he celebrate your book?    Courtesy
Scribner  For Reading My Father, you interviewed author Peter
Matthiessen, one of your dad's oldest friends and a founder of
the Paris Review with your dad. And what struck you was how much
your dad envied Matthiessen's writing discipline.  My dad envied
Peter's global discipline. Peter is a Zen priest, and he spends
hours in a dojo leading students and practicing his religion. He
embodies life-affirming aspects on which my father had somehow
lost his grip. One of those was faith. Peter still had access to
that, and daddy didn't.  Your dad received electroshock therapy
for his depression. Did it help him?  In theory, it should have
helped. But t