Look Homeward, Angel

“Each of us is all the sums he has not counted: subtract us into nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas.”

Thomas Wolfe’s first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, is at once a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story and a dark novel depicting a cynical post-war world view. The book follows the life of Eugene Gant, a young man driven by passion, intellect, and a search for something greater than himself. His earliest years in rural North Carolina include a wonderful education in poetry and literature against the backdrop of a loving, but tumultuous family life. Eugene grows up to be a writer, and as he navigates the realities of school, love, health, and what it means to discover your place in the world, he must reconcile the choice between family and self-actualization.

Wolfe once described Look Homeward, Angel as “a book made out of my life,” and the care and insight he uses to tell Eugene’s story are apparent from the very first words of the story. Wolfe’s novel has become influential to so many young people yearning for more, and to writers yearning for literary truth and beauty. 

Featuring an introduction written and read by Stefan Rudnicki.