The Historical Society of Woodstock will host Anthony Robinson, author of Father of the Man, a novel about growing up in the Maverick Colony in Woodstock, Ulster County, NY.The sons of famous men are notoriously hobbled by their fathers’ reputations.
This was not the case, however, in Woodstock, when one of the Maverick’s first writers, the struggling poet Henry Morton Robinson, emerged into literary stardom in 1950 with The Cardinal.
Anthony Robinson failed to be intimidated by his father’s brief if spectacular career and would himself write several admired novels and short stories, while becoming a professor of English Literature and director of the Creative Writing department at SUNY New Paltz.
Even so, Tad Wise argues that the son of Henry Morton Robinson has — late in his own life — left us perhaps his most remarkable portrait by recalling his own boyhood “on the Maverick,” while reproducing with uncanny accuracy and sympathy the vastly different experiences of a father and son, locked in a struggle rife with anger, resentments, begrudging love, and hard-won respect.
In Father of The Man, the younger Robinson, in fact, emulates a completely different set of mid-century American writers and — while including his own classic friendship with Maverick founder
Hervey White – makes an impressive contribution to the coming-of-age American novel.
Robinson will speak with Tad Wise at the event, which will be held Saturday August 12, 2023, at 20 Comeau Drive in Woodstock, NY, from 2-4 p.m. Admission is free, and Anthony Robinson will sign copies of his book.
The Historical Society of Woodstock was founded in 1929 by a group of artists, writers, academics, and local citizens. In addition to the exhibition space, which is located at the historic Eames House on Comeau Drive in the center of Woodstock, the Historical Society has an extensive archive consisting of paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, textiles, photographs, books, manuscripts, correspondence, documents, film/sound recordings, and antique tools. The archive serves as a resource for a wide range of exhibitions, public programming, and research.
Learn more about the Historical Society of Woodstock at their website.
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