Train Dreams: A Novella
Denis Johnson, 2011
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
128 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374281144
Summary
Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams is an epic in miniature, one of his most evocative and poignant fictions.
Robert Grainer is a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime.
Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West—its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge builders—the new novella by the National Book Award-winning author of Tree of Smoke captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1949
• Where—Munich, Germany (of American parents)
• Education—M.F.A., University of Iowa, USA
• Awards—National Book Award; Whiting Writer's Award; Paris Review's Aga Khan Prize
• Currently—lives in Arizona and Idaho, USA
Denis Hale Johnson is an American author who is known for his short-story collection Jesus' Son (1992), his novel Tree of Smoke (2007), which won the National Book Award, his novella, Train Dreams (2011), and The Laughing Monsters (2014). He also writes plays, poetry and non-fiction.
Johnson was born in 1949 in Munich, West Germany. He holds an MFA degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he has also returned to teach. He received a Whiting Writer’s Award in 1986 and a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction in 1993.
Johnson first came to prominence after the publication of his short story collection Jesus' Son (1992), whose 1999 film adaptation was named one of the top ten films of the year by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Roger Ebert. Johnson has a cameo role in the film as a man who has been stabbed in the eye by his wife.
Johnson's plays have been produced in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Seattle. He is the Resident Playwright of Campo Santo, the resident theater company at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.
In 2006-2007, Johnson held the Mitte Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.
Johnson lives with his wife, Cindy Lee, in Arizona and Idaho. He has three children, two of whom he homeschooled; in October, 1997 he wrote an article for Salon.com in defense of homeschooling. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
I first read Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams in a bright orange 2002 issue of The Paris Review and felt that old thrill of discovery.... Every once in a while, over the ensuing nine years, I’d page through that Paris Review and try to understand how Johnson had made such a quietly compelling thing. Part of it, of course, is atmosphere. Johnson’s evocation of Prohibition Idaho is totally persuasive.... The novella also accumulates power because Johnson is as skilled as ever at balancing menace against ecstasy, civilization against wilderness. His prose tiptoes a tightrope between peace and calamity, and beneath all of the novella’s best moments, Johnson runs twin strains of tenderness and the threat of violence...it might be the most powerful thing Johnson has ever written.
Athony Doerr - New York Times Book Review
Denis Johnson's Train Dreams is like a long out-of-print B-side, a hard-to-find celebrated work treasured by those in the know that’s finally become available to the rest of us.... Train Dreams is a peculiarly gripping book. It palpably conjures the beauty of an American West then still very much a place of natural wonder and menace, and places one man’s lonely life in that landscape, where he’s at once comfortably at home and utterly lost.
Dan DeLuca - Philadelphia Inquirer
His hero, Robert Grainier, a sometimes logger and sometimes hauler, is as dislocated as any wandering druggy from an earlier Johnson book. And in these logging camps and train towns, Johnson has found a territory as strange and unpredictable as any dystopic landscape of his imagination. In a way, Train Dreams puts me in mind of a late Bob Dylan album: with the wildness and psychedelia of youth burned out of him, Johnson's eccentricity is revealed as pure Americana.
Gabriel Brownstein - Cleveland Plain Dealer
Johnson’s new novella may be his most pared-down work of fiction yet, but make no mistake—it packs a wallop.... Train Dreams is a small book of weighty ideas. It renders the story of America and our westward course of empire in the most beautiful and heartbreaking manner imaginable.... Train Dreams explores what was lost in the process of American growth. Much to his credit, Johnson doesn’t simply posit industry and nature against each other, or science and religion, or even human and animal, but instead looks at how their interactions can transform both. And [Robert] Grainier is there through all of this examination, over the course of his long and sad life, to serve as our witness and maybe even our conscience.
Andrew Ervin - Miami Herald
[A] severely lovely tale.... The visionary, miraculous element in Johnson’s deceptively tough realism makes beautiful appearances in this book. The hard, declarative sentences keep their powder dry for pages at a time, and then suddenly flare into lyricism; the natural world of the American West is examined, logged, and frequently transfigured. I started reading Train Dreams with hoarded suspicion, and gradually gave it all away, in admiration of the story’s unaffected tact and honesty.
James Wood - The New Yorker
Readers eager for a fat follow-up to Tree of Smoke could be forgiven a modicum of skepticism at this tidy volume...but it would be a shame to pass up a chance to encounter the synthesis of Johnson’s epic sensibilities rendered in miniature in the clipped tone of Jesus’ Son.... An ode to the vanished West that captures the splendor of the Rockies as much as the small human mysteries that pass through them, this svelte stand-alone has the virtue of being a gem in itself, and, for the uninitiated, a perfect introduction to Johnson.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) National Book Award winner Johnson (Tree of Smoke) has skillfully packed an epic tale into novella length in this account of the life of Idaho Panhandle railroad laborer Robert Grainer . . . The gothic sensibility of the wilderness and isolated settings and Native American folktales, peppered liberally with natural and human-made violence, add darkness to a work that lingers viscerally with readers.... Highly recommended. —Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast, TX
Library Journal
National Book Award-winner Johnson, ever the literary shape-shifter, looks back to America’s expansionist fever dream in a haunting frontier ballad about a loner named Robert Granier.... Johnson draws on history and tall tales to adroitly infuse one contemplative man’s solitary life with the boundless mysteries of nature and the havoc of humankind’s breakneck technological insurgency, creating a concentrated, reverberating tale of ravishing solemnity and molten lyricism. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Introduction (by Amy Clements)
Throughout his award-winning career, Denis Johnson has brought us an endlessly fascinating cast of characters: sinners, saviors, and desperate souls caught in between. In Train Dreams, he presents a provocative portrait of a man who comes to know both excruciating hardship and quiet wonder in the American West in the first half of the twentieth century. A day laborer, Robert Grainier is on the front line in the modernization of the frontier, opening a rugged landscape to railway service, shoulder to shoulder with teams of countless men like him. Their world is divided between those who survive against astounding odds and those who succumb. Grainier is a survivor in all senses of the word: when he loses his young family, he returns to his solitary ways and struggles to make sense of the tragedy, even as he continues to feel the spiritual presence of his wife and daughter.
An epic in miniature, Train Dreams captures a singular chapter in the American story, set in an otherworldly landscape that has the potential to haunt anyone who attempts to subdue it. As we witness history alongside Grainier, we are forced to weigh the human toll against the awe-inspiring arrival of “civilization” as ordinary men eke out a living in extraordinary times. The result is a poignant, illuminating novella from one of the greatest storytellers of his generation.
This guide is designed to enhance your discussion of Train Dreams. We hope that the following questions and topics will enrich your reading of this finely honed tribute to the human experience.
1. What did the incident with the Chinese laborer show us about Robert Grainier and his beliefs regarding human suffering?
2. What made Grainier and Gladys’s marriage special? How was he transformed by his role as a husband and father?
3. What does the novella tell us about the nature of survivors such as Arn Peeples (chapter two) versus those who perish? How do the characters understand death?
4. In chapter three, how was the young Grainier affected by his encounter with half-dead William Haley and the tragic tale of Haley’s niece?
5. What aspects of life in the West stayed the same as Grainier matured and grew old? What aspects of his life were lost to modernization?
6. For Grainier, is solitude a form of solace and peace, or is loneliness painful for him? Is his solitary life appealing to you?
7. What does Kate’s story tell us about Grainier’s capacity for love? Is his community cruel or just naive?
8. In the third chapter, we’re told that Grainier never knew his parents and wasn’t even sure if he had been born in the United States or in Canada. In the absence of a mother and a father, who and what shaped his identity?
9. How does the novella’s spectacular scenery become a character itself? How do the settlers balance the brutality of nature, captured in the horrific wildfire, with their desire to live on a frontier?
10. What does the demise of Kootenai Bob in chapter four say about the relationship between his people and the settlers? What determines who the outsiders are in Grainier’s world?
11. Revisit the story of Peterson, who was shot by his own dog (chapter five). How do humans and animals get along in Train Dreams? What aspects of the animal world, and the spirit world, terrify the settlers the most?
12. Discuss the title. What are the dreamlike qualities of this novella? As Grainier expands the nation’s rail system through his death-defying work, is he transported or trapped?
13. The novella contains many powerful scenes of backbreaking manual labor through which human beings “triumph” over nature. What circumstances drew them to this life? Under what circumstances would you be satisfied with so few creature comforts?
14. Discuss the novella’s closing image. What did the wolf-boy reveal to a crowd of townspeople (including Grainier) who thought they had seen it all?
15. Much of Denis Johnson’s other fiction deals with destructive wars within the self, especially in Jesus’ Son and Tree of Smoke. Does Train Dreams underscore this view of humanity, or is it a departure from Johnson’s previous work?
(Questions issued by publisher...and written by Amy Clements/The Wordshop.)
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The Christmas Train
David Baldacci, 2002
Grand Central Publishing
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446615754
Summary
Disillusioned journalist Tom Langdon must get from Washington to Los Angeles in time for Christmas. Forced to take the train across the country because of a slight "misunderstanding" at airport security, he begins a journey of self-discovery and rude awakenings, mysterious goings-on and thrilling adventures, screwball escapades and holiday magic.
He has no idea that the locomotives pulling him across America will actually take him into the rugged terrain of his own heart, as he rediscovers people’s essential goodness and someone very special he believed he had lost.
Equal parts hilarious, poignant, suspenseful, and thrilling, The Christmas Train is filled with memorable characters who have packed their bags with as much wisdom as mischief… and shows how we do get second chances to fulfill our deepest hopes and dreams, especially during this season of miracles. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Richmond, Virginia, USA
• Education——B.A., Virginia Commonwealth University; J.D.,
University of Virginia
• Currently—lives in Northern Virginia
David Baldacci's authoritative legal thrillers operate on the irresistible notion that a sinister undercurrent threads through the country's most powerful institutions.While his stories hinge on the complex machinations behind the presidency, the FBI, the Supreme Court and other spheres of influence, Baldacci (a former Washington, D.C.-based attorney) finds his way into a mystery through the eyes of the innocents. Semi-innocents, at least: small players who often don't realize they're players at all end up hunting down answers, and their hunt becomes the reader's.
According to Baldacci, reading John Irving's The World According to Garp convinced him that he wanted to be a novelist. Absolute Power—in which a thief finds himself accidentally connected to a murder involving the president and the ensuing coverup—was hardly Irvingesque; but it did begin Baldacci's friendly relationship with the bestseller lists, which has continued over his writing career.
Baldacci's style is brief and plot-driven, but he's not afraid to linger on macabre and vivid details, such as a rosary clenched in a plane crash victim's hand, or hard-learned lessons from a sniper's life (pack your food so you can find it at night, by touch). These small but memorable—indeed, almost cinematic—details give his books another layer that distinguishes them from the average potboiler.
Although the author has occasionally departed from his usual fare (examples include the tenderhearted coming-of-age tale Wish You Well and the holiday-themed adventure The Christmas Train), it is high-octane thrillers that are his true stock in trade. Whether it's a taut stand-alone or a new installment in his "Camel Club" series, readers know when they crack the spine of a new Baldacci book, they're in for an action-packed page-turner.
Extras
• Baldacci was a trial lawyer and a corporate lawyer for nine years in Washington, D.C.
• He worked his way through college as a Pinkerton security guard and by washing and detailing 18-wheel trucks.
• Baldacci writes under his own name except when published in Italy, where he uses a pseudonym because it is the homeland of his ancestors. (Author Bio from Barnes and Noble.)
Book Reviews
Recently, Baldacci has ventured with success beyond the thrillers that made his reputation, first in 2000 with the historical melodrama Wish You Well, then earlier this year with the SF mystery novella, The Mighty Johns. Here's another stretch, one that he performs with good spirit, a lot of humor and only a bit of strain a Christmas charmer set aboard a cross-country train. Tom Langdon's life hasn't been the same since his all-time love, Eleanor Carter, left him years ago while the two were hotshot journalists, and since he's quit serious reporting for writing fluff. Banned from flying for a year because of an air rage incident, he's decided to write about riding the rails over the Christmas holidays, planning to link up with his erstwhile girlfriend, a Hollywood star, in L.A. Aboard the Capitol Limited, running from D.C. to Chicago, Tom meets a host of unusual fellow travelers, including rambunctious train personnel, lonely wanderers and a pair of elopers; he also runs into Eleanor, now a screenwriter for a legendary film director who's on board researching a possible film about trains. Matters complicate further aboard the Southwest Chief, running from Chicago to L.A., as Tom's Tinseltown girlfriend shows up and proposes marriage just as Tom and Eleanor are working their way back together; a sneak thief nabs valuables; and an avalanche traps the train in the midst of a historic blizzard. The narrative is loaded with cool train lore (Baldacci dedicates the book to "everyone who loves trains and holidays") and plenty of romance and good cheer, though suspense is low who can doubt how things will work out? and the author gets a bit preachy about the advantages of train travel and the lessons of Christmas. This is a more warmhearted and enjoyable novel than Grisham's comparable holiday offering last year, Skipping Christmas, and Baldacci's fans will snap it up as the Yuletide treat it is..
Publishers Weekly
Baldacci's latest offering—a sweet holiday tale—is a departure from his last thriller, Last Man Standing (2001). Tom Langdon is a former war reporter who now writes feature articles for various magazines. Banned from flying on airplanes after a hostile incident at an airport security checkpoint, Langdon is forced to take a cross-country train from Washington, D.C., to L.A., where his girlfriend is waiting to spend Christmas with him.... This latest Baldacci might not appeal to all of the fans who lap up his fast-paced thrillers, but the heartwarming holiday story might win him new fans who enjoy seasonal tales. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. What is Tom Langdon’s first impression of train travel in the United States?
2. What role do Regina and Agnes Joe play in the novel?
3. How does Eleanor deal with seeing Tom again?
4. How does setting the novel at Christmas time add to the storyline? What themes and premises emerge as a result of this holiday setting?
5. Discuss how the snow blizzard adds to the character development.
6. The unexpected ending lends itself to the holiday theme of renewal and second chances. Discuss what other elements in the book have this same theme.
(Questions from author's website.)
The Violets of March
Sarah Jio, 2011
Penguin Group USA
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780452297036
Summary
Emily Wilson would be the first to admit that her life has seen better days. Her best-selling novel debuted eight years ago, she has struggled to write since, and she is now coming face-to-face with divorce from her once perfect husband Joel. Emily needs to heal, and she decides the best place to renew herself is across the country in a dear spot from her childhood: Bainbridge Island.
While staying with her beloved Aunt Bee, Emily's attempt at healing becomes complicated when she discovers the diary of a mysterious woman named Esther. Esther's story leads Emily on a path through a timeless love story, a painful series of misunderstandings, and a devastating secret that has vexed her family for decades.
The Violets of March is a story about love and fate. It's about the power such love has over us over space and time, and how it can haunt us when it goes unfulfilled. It defines love as an eternal bond that may drive us toward irrationality, but, ultimately, brings us hope for happiness and forgiveness. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1978
• Raised—the state of Washington, USA
• Education—B.A., Western Washington University
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington
Sarah Jio is a veteran magazine writer and the health and fitness blogger for Glamour magazine. She has written hundreds of articles for national magazines and top newspapers including Redbook, O, The Oprah Magazine, Cooking Light, Glamour, SELF, Real Simple, Fitness, Marie Claire, Hallmark magazine, Seventeen, The Nest, Health, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, The Seattle Times, Parents, Woman’s Day, American Baby, Parenting, and Kiwi. She has also appeared as a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Sarah has a degree in journalism and writes about topics that include food, nutrition, health, entertaining, travel, diet/weight loss, beauty, fitness, shopping, psychology, parenting and beyond. She frequently tests and develops recipes for major magazines.
Her first novel The Violets of March, published in April, 2011, was chosen as a Best Book of 2011 by Library Journal. Her second novel, The Bungalow, was published in December of the same year. Blackberry Winter came out in 2012. The Last Camellia and Morning Glory were both issued in 2013.
Sarah lives in Seattle with her husband, Jason, and three young sons. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[F]eed the kids before you settle in with journalist Sarah Jio's engrossing first novel, The Violets of March. This mystery-slash-love-story will have you racing to the end—cries of "Mom, I'm hungry!" be damned.
Redbook
Mystery meets romance in this absorbing debut novel. ... Readers will be enthralled from the start of the dual story lines, all the way through to the satisfying conclusion.
Women's Day
Using the curious nature of wood violets, which have bloomed on the island in an off-season to signal promise and redemption, the story's setting and sentiment are sure to entice readers and keep them captivated page after page.
Romance Times Books
Jio’s debut novel is a rich blend of history, mystery, and romance. After a heartbreaking divorce, one-hit-wonder author Emily is staying on Bainbridge Island, WA, with her elderly aunt when she comes across a diary from the 1940s. Drawn into the details of a mysterious stranger’s life, Emily begins to see parallels to her own situation and senses a mystical connection with the anonymous writer. Fans of Sarah Blake’s The Postmistress should enjoy this story.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Who is Emily Wilson? How would you describe her life and her state of mind at the beginning of the book? What draws you to her character?
2. What are your first impressions of Bee? How would you describe Emily and Bee's relationship?
3. What role does Bainbridge Island play in this story? What makes it unique? What does the island offer Emily that she can't get from her life in New York?
4. Family secrets play a significant part of the action in this book. How have these secrets affected Emily's family and personal relationships? Would you have tried to uncover the truth as well?
5. Emily finds two love interests on Bainbridge Island: Greg and Jack. What are your impressions of each of these men? Considering that Emily ultimately pursues Jack, would you have done the same? Why or why not?
6. Fate is a strong force in The Violets of March. How does fate affect Esther's story? How does it affect Emily's? What parallels do you see between the two? Do you believe in fate?
7. Henry reveals that he planted Esther's diary for Emily to find. Why didn't he confront Bee himself? Why was it important for Emily to find the diary and read it?
8. At one point, Emily thinks to herself, “What power Esther had over all of them.” What is your opinion of that thought? What power did Esther have over Elliot, Evelyn, Bee, Janice, and Henry? What power did her story have over Emily?
9. Both Bee and Elliot harbor guilt about the night of Esther's accident. How do you feel they handled the situation? Would you have protected Elliot the way Bee did? Would you have gone down after Esther the way Elliot said he had wanted to?
10. When Joel attempts to rekindle his love with her, Emily has gone through a great deal of soul-searching. What is your opinion of her decision to not take Joel back? Would you have done the same?
11. Elliot says that he and Esther were “soul mates,” and Emily's relationship with Jack mirrors that sentiment. Do you believe in soul mates? What role does timing play in these two couples' relationships? What could Esther and Elliot have done differently to be together.
12. The final scene finds Emily on the verge of writing again. How do you envision what her next book will look like? What future do you see for Emily?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Little Black Dress
Susa McBride, 2011
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062027191
Summary
Two sisters whose lives seemed forever intertwined are torn apart when a magical little black dress gives each one a glimpse of an unavoidable future.
Antonia Ashton has worked hard to build a thriving career and a committed relationship, but she realizes her life has gone off track. Forced to return home to Blue Hills when her mother, Evie, suffers a massive stroke, Toni finds the old Victorian where she grew up as crammed full of secrets as it is with clutter. Now she must put her mother’s house in order—and uncover long-buried truths about Evie and her aunt, Anna, who vanished fifty years earlier on the eve of her wedding.
By shedding light on the past, Toni illuminates her own mistakes and learns the most unexpected things about love, magic, and a little black dress with the power to break hearts… and mend them. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Susan McBride is the author of Little Black Dress (2011) and The Cougar Club (2010) selected by Target Stores as a Bookmarked Breakout Title and named a Midwest Connections Pick by the Midwest Booksellers Association. Cougar also made MORE Magazine's list of "February Books We're Buzzing About." Foreign editions of The Cougar Club will be published in Croatia, France, and Turkey. The Cougar Club centers on three 45-year-old childhood pals from St. Louis who reconnect and discover that you're never too old to follow your heart. After Little Black Dress, Susan will write Little White Lies, another women's fiction book for HarperCollins/Morrow, as well as Dead Address, a young adult thriller for Random House/Delacorte.
On the personal front, Susan calls herself an "Accidental Cougar" after meeting a younger man in 2005 when she was a St. Louis Magazine Top Single. They were married in February 2008 and live happily ever after in a suburb of St. Louis. Susan is a breast cancer survivor and often speaks to women's groups about her experience.
Additionally, Susan has written five award-winning Debutante Dropout Mysteries (HarperCollins/Avon), including Blue Blood, The Good Girl's Guide To Murder, The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club, Night Of The Living Deb, and Too Pretty To Die. She has authored several YA series books for Random House about debutantes in Houston, the debut in 2008 appropriately titled The Debs and followed by Love, Lies, And Texas Dips in 2009. Gloves Off, the third book, is in pub date limbo.
Susan was the cover girl for the February 2009 issue of St. Louis Woman Magazine, where she was featured in the article, "Paperback Princess." (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[A] well-told tale of a mother-daughter relationship is fraught with secrets, disappointment, and unspoken love...well-paced love story to those who can appreciate three...sexy heroines who know history and have rich ones of their own.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
1. How are sisters Evie and Anna different? Are they alike in any way?
2. Do you see a parallel between the sisters’ difficult relationship and Toni’s relationship with Evie? Is it a case of history repeating itself (i.e., Evie’s relationship with Anna) or something else?
3. Anna was instantly drawn into the Gypsy’s shop while Evie wanted nothing to do with it. While Anna seemed mesmerized by the tale of the black dress and easily accepted that it was magical, Evie thought her foolish. What makes Anna so reckless and Evie so cautious?
4. Toni is as wary of the dress as Evie. Does she handle glimpsing her fate any better than Evie or Anna?
5. Once Evie had experienced the power of the dress, did it help her to understand why Anna left? Or did it further confuse her?
6. Toni resisted going back to Blue Hills because she felt like her past was behind her; instead she discovered that so much of who she is relates to her own history and that of her family. Did she have to leave home to find herself? Or did Toni truly discover who she is once she returned to Blue Hills?
7. When Anna walks into the river with the baby, Evie wishes her gone and can’t imagine ever forgiving her. Do you think Anna’s punishment was enough or too much? Why does it take so long for Evie to forgive? Do you think what Anna did was unforgivable?
8. Is there any one thing that makes Toni realize she isn’t in love with Greg, or is it a case of absence giving her clarity rather than making the heart grow fonder?
9. What is the significance of Toni taking part in the ice harvest?
10. The novel is full of water imagery as water is a life-giver but also has the power to take lives. How does this imagery symbolize what each main character goes through? (For example, Evie’s sense of treading water while she’s in a coma.)
11. Should Anna and Evie have told Toni the truth about her birth? Was Anna right to want to keep it a secret for the time being? Is there ever a case when keeping secrets is less damaging than telling the truth?
12. Do you have a personal belonging that holds some “magic” for you? Does it make you feel better, happier, or more secure?
(Questions issued by LitLovers.)
Look Homeward, Angel
Thomas Wolfe, 1929
Simon & Schuster
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743297318
Summary
The classic first novel from one of America's greatest men of letters "I don't know yet what I am capable of doing," wrote Thomas Wolfe at the age of twenty-three, "but, by God, I have genius—I know it too well to blush behind it." Six years later, with the publication of Look Homeward, Angel, Wolfe gave the world proof of his genius, and he would continue to do so throughout his tumultuous life.
Look Homeward, Angel tells the coming-of-age story of Eugene Gant, whose restlessness and yearning to experience life to the fullest take him from his rural home in North Carolina to Harvard. Through his rich, ornate prose and meticulous attention to detail, Wolfe evokes the peculiarities of small-town life and the pain and upheaval of leaving home. Heavily autobiographical, Look Homeward, Angel is Wolfe's most turbulent and passionate work, and a brilliant novel of lasting impact.
Thomas Wolfe's classic coming-of-age novel, first published in 1929, is a work of epic grandeur, evoking a time and place with extraordinary lyricism and precision. Set in Altamont, North Carolina, this semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a restless young man who longs to escape his tumultuous family and his small town existence. (From the publisher.)
More
The novel follows the trajectory of Eugene Gant, a brilliant and restless young man whose wanderlust and passion shape his adolescent years in rural North Carolina. Wolfe said that Look Homeward, Angel is "a book made out of my life," and his largely autobiographical story about the quest for a greater intellectual life has resonated with and influenced generations of readers, including some of today's most important novelists. Rich with lyrical prose and vivid characterizations, this twentieth-century American classic will capture the hearts and imaginations of every reader. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 3, 1900
• Where—Asheville, North Carolina, USA
• Died—September 15, 1938
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; M.A.,
Harvard University
Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century. He wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. His books, written and published from the 1920s to the 1940s, reflect vividly on American culture and mores of the period, albeit filtered through Wolfe's sensitive, sophisticated and hyper-analytical perspective. He was famous during his own lifetime.
After Wolfe's death, his chief contemporary William Faulkner said that Wolfe may have had the best talent of their generation. Wolfe's influence extends to the writings of famous Beat writer Jack Kerouac, authors Ray Bradbury and Philip Roth, among others. He remains one of the most important writers in modern American literature, as he was one of the first masters of autobiographical fiction. He is considered North Carolina's most famous writer.
Early life
Wolfe was born in Asheville, North Carolina, the youngest of eight children of William Oliver Wolfe (1851–1922) and Julia Elizabeth Westall (1860–1945). The Wolfes lived at 92 Woodfin Street, where Tom was born. His father, a successful stone carver, ran a gravestone business. His mother took in boarders and was active in acquiring real estate. In 1904, she opened a boarding house in St. Louis, for the World's Fair. While the family was in St. Louis, Wolfe's 12-year-old Grover died of typhoid fever.
In 1906, Julia Wolfe bought a boarding house named "Old Kentucky Home" at nearby 48 Spruce Street in Asheville, taking up residence there with her youngest son while the rest of the family remained at the Woodfin Street residence. Wolfe lived in the boarding house on Spruce Street until he went to college in 1916. It is now the Thomas Wolfe Memorial. Wolfe was closest to his brother Ben, whose early death at age 26 is chronicled in Look Homeward, Angel. Julia Wolfe bought and later sold many properties, eventually becoming a successful real estate speculator.
Wolfe began to study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) when he was 15 years old; he was a member of the Dialectic Society and Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and predicted that his portrait would one day hang in New West near that of celebrated North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance, which it does today. Aspiring to be a playwright, in 1919 Wolfe enrolled in a playwriting course. His one-act play, "The Return of Buck Gavin," was performed by the newly-formed Carolina Playmakers, then composed of classmates in Frederick Koch's playwriting class, with Wolfe acting the title role. He edited UNC's student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel, and won the Worth Prize for Philosophy for an essay titled "The Crisis in Industry." Another of his plays, The Third Night, was performed by the Playmakers in December 1919. Wolfe was inducted into the Golden Fleece honor society.
He graduated from UNC with a B.A. degree in June 1920. In September of that year, he entered the Graduate School for Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, where he studied playwriting under George Pierce Baker. Two versions of Wolfe's play The Mountains were performed by Baker's 47 Workshop in 1921.
In 1922, Wolfe received his Master's degree from Harvard. His father died in Asheville in June of that year, an event that would strongly influence his writing. Wolfe continued to study for another year with Baker in the 47 Workshop, which produced his ten-scene play, Welcome to Our City, in May 1923.
Wolfe visited New York City again in November 1923 and solicited funds for UNC while trying to sell his plays to Broadway. In February 1924, he began teaching English as an instructor at New York University (NYU), a position he occupied periodically for almost seven years.
Career
Unable to sell any of his plays after three years due to their excessive length, including a time when the Theatre Guild came close to producing his play Welcome to Our City before ultimately rejecting it, Wolfe found his writing style more suited to fiction than the stage. He sailed to Europe in October 1924 to continue writing. From England he traveled to France, Italy and Switzerland. On his return voyage in 1925, he met Aline Bernstein (1882–1955), a scene designer for the Theatre Guild. 18 years his senior, Bernstein was married to a successful stock broker with whom she had two children.
In October 1925, Wolfe and Bernstein became lovers and remained so for five years. Their affair was turbulent and sometimes combative, but she exerted a powerful influence, encouraging and funding his writing. He returned to Europe in the summer of 1926 and began writing the first version of a novel, O Lost, which eventually evolved into Look Homeward, Angel. An autobiographical novel that fictionalized his early experiences in Asheville, the narrative chronicled family, friends and the boarders at his mother's establishment on Spruce Street. In the book, he renamed the town Altamont and called the boarding house "Dixieland." His family was fictionalized under the name Gant, with Wolfe calling himself Eugene, his father Oliver, and his mother Eliza.
The original manuscript of O Lost was over 100 pages and 66,000 words longer and considerably more experimental in character than the final edited version of Look Homeward, Angel. The editing was done by Maxwell Perkins at Scribner's, the most prominent book editor of the time, who also worked with Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Initially, Wolfe expressed gratitude to Perkins for his disciplined editing. It has been said that Wolfe found a father figure in Perkins, who had five daughters and found in Wolfe a sort of foster son relationship. Perkins cut the book to focus more on the character of Eugene, a stand-in for Wolfe himself.
When the novel was published 11 days before the stock market crash of 1929, Wolfe dedicated it to Bernstein. Soon after the book's publication, Wolfe returned to Europe and ended his affair with Bernstein. The publication of the novel caused a stir in Asheville, with its over 200 thinly disguised local characters. Wolfe chose to stay away from Asheville for eight years due to the uproar; he traveled to Europe for a year on a Guggenheim fellowship. Look Homeward, Angel was a bestseller in the United Kingdom and Germany. Some members of Wolfe's family were also upset with their portrayal in the book, but his sister Mabel wrote to him that she was sure he had the best of intentions.
After four more years writing in Brooklyn, the second novel Wolfe submitted to Scribner's was The October Fair, a multi-volume epic roughly the length of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. After considering the commercial possibilities of publishing the book in full, Perkins opted to cut it down significantly and create a single, bestseller-sized volume, which would be titled Of Time and the River. This novel was more commercially successful than Look Homeward, Angel. In a twist from the publication of his previous novel, the citizens of Asheville were more upset this time if they hadn't been included than if they had. The character of Esther Jack was based on Bernstein. In 1934, Maxim Lieber served as his literary agent.
Wolfe left Scribner's and signed with Harper Bros. By some accounts, Perkins' severe editing of Wolfe's work prompted him to leave the Scribner imprint. Other accounts describe Wolfe's growing resentment that some attributed his success to Perkins' work as editor. In 1936, Bernard DeVoto, reviewing The Story of a Novel for Saturday Review, wrote that Look Homeward, Angel was "hacked and shaped and compressed into something resembling a novel by Mr. Perkins and the assembly-line at Scribners."
Wolfe spent much time in Europe and was especially popular and at ease in Germany, where he made many friends. However, in 1936, he witnessed discriminatory incidents towards Jewish people that upset him and changed his mind about the political developments in the country. Wolfe returned to America and published a short story chronicling the incidents called "I Have a Thing to Tell You" in the New Republic. Following that publication, Wolfe's books were banned by the German government and he was prohibited from traveling there. Wolfe did return to Asheville in the summer of 1937 for the first time since publication of his first book.
Death
In 1938, after turning in a large body of manuscript materials, over one million words, to his new editor, Edward Aswell, Wolfe left New York for a tour of the West. On the way, he stopped at Purdue University and gave a lecture, "Writing and Living," then spent two weeks traveling through 11 national parks in the West, the only part of the country he had never visited before. Wolfe wrote to Aswell that while he had focused on his family in his previous writing, he would now take a more global perspective. In July, Wolfe became ill with pneumonia while visiting Seattle, spending three weeks in the hospital there. His sister Mabel closed her boardinghouse in Washington, DC and went to Seattle to care for him. Complications arose, and Wolfe was eventually diagnosed with miliary tuberculosis of the brain.
On September 6, he was sent to Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment under the most famous neurosurgeon in the country, Dr. Walter Dandy, but an attempt at a life-saving operation revealed that the disease had overrun the entire right side of his brain. Without regaining consciousness, he died 18 days before his 38th birthday. His last writing, a journal of his two-week trip through the national parks, was found in his belongings hours after his death.
Despite his disagreements with Perkins and Scribner's, on his deathbed Wolfe wrote a deeply moving letter to Perkins, whom he considered to be his closest friend. He acknowledged that Perkins had helped to realize his work and had made his labors possible. In closing he wrote:
I shall always think of you and feel about you the way it was that Fourth of July day three years ago when you met me at the boat, and we went out on the cafe on the river and had a drink and later went on top of the tall building, and all the strangeness and the glory and the power of life and of the city was below.
Thomas Wolfe is interred in Riverside Cemetery, Asheville, North Carolina, beside his parents, W.O. and Julia Wolfe, and his siblings.
The next day, the New York Times wrote:
His was one of the most confident young voices in contemporary American literature, a vibrant, full-toned voice which it is hard to believe could be so suddenly stilled. The stamp of genius was upon him, though it was an undisciplined and unpredictable genius.... There was within him an unspent energy, an untiring force, an unappeasable hunger for life and for expression which might have carried him to the heights and might equally have torn him down.
Time magazine wrote: The death last week of Thomas Clayton Wolfe shocked critics with the realization that, of all American novelists of his generation, he was the one from whom most had been expected." Due to his early death, Wolfe spent the shortest amount of time writing of any major novelist during that time, with a career less than half as long as Fitzgerald, Hemingway, or Faulkner.
Upon publication of Look Homeward, Angel, most reviewers responded favorably, including John Chamberlain, Carl Van Doren, and Stringfellow Barr. Margaret Wallace wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Wolfe had produced "as interesting and powerful a book as has ever been made out of the drab circumstances of provincial American life." An anonymous review published in Scribner's magazine compared Wolfe to Walt Whitman, and many other reviewers and scholars have found similarities in their works since.
When published in the UK in July 1930, the book received similar reviews. Richard Aldington wrote that the novel was "the product of an immense exuberance, organic in its form, kinetic, and drenched with the love of life... I rejoice over Mr. Wolfe." Both in his 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech and original press conference announcement, Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, said of Wolfe, "He may have a chance to be the greatest American writer.... In fact I don't see why he should not be one of the greatest world writers."
Critical reception and legacy
Upon publication of his second novel, Of Time and the River, most reviewers and the public remained supportive, though some critics found shortcomings while still hailing it for moments or aspects of greatness. The book was well-received by the public and became his only American bestseller. The publication was viewed as "the literary event of 1935"; by comparison, the earlier attention given to Look Homeward, Angel was modest. Both the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune published enthusiastic front-page reviews. Clifton Fadiman wrote in The New Yorker that while he wasn't sure what he thought of the book, "for decades we have not had eloquence like his in American writing." Malcolm Cowley of The New Republic thought the book would be twice as good if half as long, but stated Wolfe was "the only contemporary writer who can be mentioned in the same breath as Dickens and Dostoevsky." Robert Penn Warren thought Wolfe produced some brilliant fragments from which "several fine novels might be written." He went on to say: "And meanwhile it may be well to recollect that Shakespeare merely wrote Hamlet; he was not Hamlet." Warren also praised Wolfe in the same review, though, as did John Donald Wade in a separate review.
While acclaimed when alive as one of the most important American writers of equal quality to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner, Wolfe's reputation has been "all but destroyed" since his death, although the New York Times wrote in 2003 that Wolfe's reputation and related scholarship appeared to be on an "upswing." He is often left out of college courses and anthologies devoted to great writers. Faulkner and W.J. Cash listed Wolfe as the ablest writer of their generation, although Faulkner later qualified his praise. Despite his early admiration of Wolfe's work, Faulkner subsequently concluded that his novels were "like an elephant trying to do the hoochie-cooochie." Ernest Hemingway's verdict was that Wolfe was "the over-bloated Lil Abner of literature."
Two universities hold the primary archival collections of Thomas Wolfe materials in the United States: the Thomas Clayton Wolfe Papers at Harvard University's Houghton Library, which includes all of Wolfe's manuscripts, and the Thomas Wolfe Collections in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UNC-Chapel Hill presents the annual Thomas Wolfe Prize and Lecture each October at the time of Wolfe's birthday to a contemporary writer, with past recipients including Roy Blount, Jr., Robert Morgan, and Pat Conroy.
Wolfe inspired the works of many other authors, including Betty Smith with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek, and Prince of Tides author Pat Conroy, who has said, "My writing career began the instant I finished Look Homeward, Angel." Jack Kerouac idolized Wolfe. Ray Bradbury was both influenced by and included Wolfe as a character in his books. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Language as rich and ambitious and intensely American as any of our novelists has ever accomplished.
Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain)
Look Homeward, Angel is one of the most important novels of my life. . . . It's a wonderful story for any young person burning with literary ambition, but it also speaks to the longings of our whole lives; I'm still moved by Wolfe's ability to convey the human appetite for understanding and experience.
Elizabeth Kostova (The Historian)
Wolfe made it possible to believe that the stuff of life, with all its awe and mystery and magic, could by some strange alchemy be transmuted to the page.
William Gay (The Long Home)
As so many other American boys had before and have since, I discovered a version of myself in Look Homeward, Angel, and I became intoxicated with the elevated, poetic prose.
Robert Morgan (Gap Creek)
Discussion Questions
1. Like Faulkner and Joyce, Wolfe has been acclaimed for his evocation of place. What details in Look Homeward, Angel evoke its setting, and what is the relation between its setting and its themes?
2. Describe the structure of Look Homeward, Angel. Discuss Wolfe's literary voice and his use of dramatic episodes and lyricism. How does Wolfe use both angels and trains symbolically? What significance does the title Look Homeward, Angel gather in the course of the novel?
3. In what ways does the novel powerfully represent the American struggle to go beyond the limitations of home and hometown? In what ways is the novel a search for America as well?
4. Describe the conflict which rages inside of Eugene Gant? How does it become the underlying force in the story?
5. Look Homeward, Angel is concerned with family and breaking away. Discuss this theme as it emerges in the book as well as in the exchanges between Eugene and Eliza, Eugene and Mr. Gant, Eugene and Ben.
6. Wolfe clearly states in the opening pages:
That we are born alone—all of us who ever lived or will live—that we live alone, and die alone, and that we are strangers to one another, and never come to know one another.
How does this sentiment pervade the novel? How does Wolfe develop it as a leitmotiv? Who else in the novel, besides Eugene, is alone?
7. Women play a significant role in Wolfe's novel, especially Eliza, Margaret, Laura James, and Helen. What distinguishes Wolfe's female characters? What do they all have in common? How do these women shape events? What impact do they have on Eugene's growth and ultimate transformation?
8. Discuss the impetus Wolfe's male characters provide Eugene. What characterizes Wolfe's male characters? How do Mr. Gant, Ben, Steve, and Luke contribute to Eugene's ultimate fate? What role do Wolfe's male characters play in the events, in the family?
9. How might Wolfe perceive his own characters? Does he offer any insights into their troubles? Does he treat them sympathetically? If so, how? In what ways do Wolfe's characters, in particular Eugene, try to win love? What keeps them from obtaining it? Do Wolfe's characters ever break through to one another? If so, who, how, and when?
10. Beginning with the death of Mr. Gant's grandfather, to the death of Mr. Gant's first child, death is a constant presence in Look Homeward, Angel. What impact does Ben's death have on the Gant family? Specifically, how does it alter Eugene's life and perspective? Why is Ben's death ironic in the novel? How does the story build to this climax? What does Ben's death accomplish that his life could not?
11. Why might Wolfe have ended the novel with a visitation of Ben's ghost with Eugene? What is its significance both for Eugene and for the novel?
12. What vision of human nature does Look Homeward, Angel seem to express? Does Wolfe prove or suggest a vision of an ideal world? What might it be?
(Questions issued by publisher.)