down, saying: “I want to tell you thenstory of my life.” He proceeded intonthe early hours of the morning, longnafter the wine was gone and my interestnwith it, reciting a series of eventsnstrung together with too many “andnthens.” These mindless and morbidnprobings are distasteful enough innour everyday life; they become morenso w^hen they find their way into art.nIn Paul Mazursky’s film An UnmarriednWoman, there is a scene innwhich Alan Bates, in the full bloom ofnnew love, says to Jill Clayburgh: “Inwant to know everything about you.”nThe audience could breathe a sigh ofnrelief that, given the usual cinematicntime constraints, the lover’s wishnwould not be fulfilled. The reader ofnJoan Givner’s Katherine Anne Porter:nA Life is not so fortunate. Givner’s unabashednadmiration for her subject isnsomething like that of the new lovernin the height of passion: noncriticalnwith an unending tendency to dwellnon minutiae.nIn themselves, the facts ofnKatherine Anne Porter’s life are interesting.nBorn into an impoverishednTexas family and uneducated in thentraditional sense, she went on to becomenone of the finest literary stylistsnof her own, or any, day. Once she leftnher home state, she rarely returnednto it. Instead, she lived in a series ofnstimulating places during periods ofnparticularly high excitement. Shenwas in Greenwich Village at the timenof the Volstead Act, Boston duringnthe Sacco and Vanzetti affair, MexiconCity during the Obregon Revolution.nShe was in Berlin when Hitler rose tonpower; on at least one occasion hernescort was Hermann Goering. FromnGermany she traveled to Paris, wherenshe lived for four years before thenoutbreak of World War II. Porter hadnfour husbands, countless lovers, and,nthough she yearned to have a child,ndied childless. Given to poor health,nshe was Hear death on several occasionsnyet lived to be 90 years old.nZZ^m^mmmmmmmmnChronicles of Cultaren1 he facts of Katherine Anne Porter’snlife aren’t uninteresting; the tellingnof them is. Whatever Givner hasndiscovered about Porter is in thenbook. Porter’s life is here, by days,nmonths, weeks, and years—all 90 ofnthem. Episode after episode is recounted,nnone seemingly more importantnthan another. Certain situa­ntions repeat themselves: love affairsngone wrrong, hospital stays, trips tonexotic places, expensive shoppingnsprees, periods of being unable tonwrite. The account of Porter’s firstnmarriage, at age 15 to 27-year-oldnJohn Henry Koontz, differs little fromnthe account of her fourth and l.^st, atnage 48 to 26-year-old Albert Erskine.nGivner w^rites of the POrter-Koontznmarriage:nIt seems quite likely that the twonyoung people, both totally unpreparednfor marriage, drawn togethernfor the most unsubstantialnof reasons—^physical attractionnand, on Porter’s side, a desperatenneed for financial and emotionalnstability—^found themselves swiftlyndisappointed and pushed each otherninto outrageous acts.nOf the Porter-Erskine union, she says:nNo marriage can have been basednon slighter knowledge. The partnersnhad known each other for eightnmonths, but during that time theynhad spent only a few weekends together.nThe letters had served not tonnndeepen their knowledge of eachnother but to obscure it. Porter refiisednto take stock of the age diflferencenbetween them and Erskine didnnot even kno^v ho^v old she wasnThe marriage was a total and unmitigatedndisaster, and she knew it to benso on the day it began. She said itnended on the day they were marriednand the rest was just appearances,nthe first summer being a long seasonnof rain, terrible heat, and terrible,nsuffocating unhappiness. Therenwere violent rows in which Erskinenwould vent his rage by driving at terrifyinglynhigh speeds. Porter, if shenwas beside him, would fear for hernlife.nPorter’s “obscuring” the facts tonErskine—^and to everyone else includingnGivner—^was another of her habits.nShe created so many myths (somenmight call them lies) about herself thatnher life seems as much a fiction as hernfiction. She was forever embroideringnsome details of her Ufe, deletingnothers, fabricating those which maynhave pleased her at a given time. Shencreated myths about her family, hernhusbands, her lovers, and her education,nff there are several explanationsnfor any one event. Miss Givner tends tonpresent them aU, much to the confusionnof the reader. Included are a seriesnof items about Miss Porter’s sexual histor).nShe was frigid and barren; yet it isnalso suggested that she was a nymphomaniacnvTith casual sexual habits. Shenbecame pregnant (even though infertile),nlater to miscarry. Yet her miscarriagenoccurs after she has had a hysterectomy,nperformed because shenhad contracted a case of gonorrheanfrom her first husband during the marriage.nThe details of Miss Porter’s sexualnhabits and history are chronologicallynconfiising at best. At worst, theynare tasteless, the hallmark of the mindlessnand morbid probings of all toonmany recent literary biographies.nJoan Givner, aprofessor of English atnthe University of Regina in Saskatchewan,nwas Porter’s handpicked biographer.nGivner has researched her sub-n