Uphill with Archie: A Son's Journey

About this book

Uphill with Archie is a beautifully written and deeply involving look at the life and the world of the great literary icon poet Archibald MacLeish by his youngest son. Partly an homage partly an attempt to come to terms with the man (and the legend) Uphill with Archie speaks to all sons and daughters who have never completely resolved their feelings about powerful parents. Young William MacLeish grew up both captivated and cowed by the fame of a father who won Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry and comparable honors for his work as a lawyer playwright teacher and government official. Williams mother Ada began her marriage as a successful concert singer in Paris but later felt compelled to give up her art for her family. When Archie was working for Henry Luce and Fortune magazine his younger children watched over by a governess stayed with their grandfather in Connecticut. But it is of the time spent with his family at Uphill Farm a beautiful old house above a Massachusetts hilltown that MacLeish has his fondest and most telling memories: "Archie and Ada gave me great gifts: music the sound of the language beautifully spoken the draw of knowledge the arts of humor " William writes. "I learned to perform for them and in time found myself addicted to getting a nice tan from Archies sun. And the more I bathed in his light the harder I found it to go looking for my own." At Uphill Farm his parents often permitted William to join their friends in the fun. The boy quickly got used to acting the adult around the likes of Gerald and Sara Murphy John and Katey Dos Passos Carl Sandburg Dean and Alice Acheson and Felix Frankfurter. He reveled in the game -- until reality hit him and he realized that he was the least of the company. Even then he would continue to pretend to adapt to reach for attention. When he pressed too hard Ada would send him to his room. In Uphill with Archie William MacLeish paints an indelible portrait of a privileged world a charmed existence in which he moved from pleasing his father to making his father proud. Affectionate moving and marvelously evocative it is a book sure to appeal to readers of such classic works as Calvin Tompkinss Living Well Is the Best Revenge and Susan Cheevers books about her parents Home Before Dark and Treetops.