If books have requited his affections during a 35-year career in the highest echelon of American nonfiction, they’ve also played matchmaker. The estate gift goes to a fund for rare books and special collections on American exploration, travel, topography and Native American studies. “But I loved it.”įifty-eight years later, Trogdon formalized that paternal feeling by making a seven-figure donation to Ellis Library. They were somehow his to read and care for. In that moment, Trogdon voluntarily shouldered what felt like an overwhelming responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of volumes hunched under the low ceilings. “I remember going through that little entrance on the second floor and seeing the closed stacks for the first time.” He was awestruck. In the 1950s, the only freshmen allowed in the library stacks were honors students, Trogdon says. For Trogdon, campus was embodied by Jesse Hall, where he took classes the Columns, whose physical presence inspired him and the library, his sanctum. However, a stratospheric entrance exam score previewed his potential, and soon he was thriving in honors college courses. Anchored in Trogdon’s experiences and layered with his authorial imagination, he calls the book hybrid fiction.ĭespite Trogdon’s bibliophilia, he arrived at Mizzou in 1957 on academic probation, owing to low grades in high school. His new book, Celestial Mechanics (Three Rooms Press, 2017), excerpted on the following pages, is his first novel. Trogdon, who writes under the nom de plume William Least Heat-Moon, has authored nine books, including the best-sellers Blue Highways, PrairyErth and River-Horse. “I’ve always had this love of books,” says Trogdon, BA ’61, MA ’62, PhD ’73, BJ ’78, DHL ’11. But there is the photograph: Wee William Trogdon, age 2, seated on the floor, studying a book - a reader amongst toddlers.
On first hearing, the story smacks of so much over-proud, possibly mythical, family lore surrounding a precocious tot who grows up to become an acclaimed author. He is shown here in Ellis Library’s special collections and rare books area.
Long known for his nonfiction, starting with Blue Highways in 1983, Trogdon published his first novel in 2017, excerpted on the following pages. Ever since he could remember, noted author William Trogdon has had a book in his hand.
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