[Asheville Citizen, October 20, 1929]

Stirring First Novel By Local Man Making Big Hit In Literary World
Thomas Wolfe's Story of Small Town is Unique
Scribner's Publish Book Which Shows Obverse of 'Main Street'

"LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL," by Thomas Wolfe. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons; 1929. $2.50
Reviewed by Lola M. Love

This first novel by Thomas Wolfe of Asheville, is, according to those who have been already privileged to read it, destined to be the sensation of the fall literary season. This young man, born in Asheville and educated at the State University, has taken the world by storm with the rugged and colorful sincerity with which he presents his characters. His publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, asked him to start a second book even before "Look Homeward, Angel" had come from the press. It is also predicted that, before many weeks, the book will be asked for in some of the leading European countries. The book has been eagerly awaited by literary circles in New York and it is expected that it will be one of the most discussed novels of the fall.

"Look Homeward, Angel" was begun while the author was staying in England and the news that his manuscript would be published reached Mr. Wolfe three years later in Vienna. At present he is teaching in New York University and living at the Harvard Club in New York City.

The book is a genius' combination of reality, which will not shrink from even the most sordid details of everyday life, and of a child-like expression of the most delightful fantasy. Both realism and thought are clothed in a vibrant language which pulses with the joy which life's ordinary happenings bring to the author. There is delight in reading words which have been used by Mr. Wolfe to cram the book with meaning and with living people.

Many books of today have, like "Look Homeward, Angel," revealed the life of the small American city. But they have shown it as dull and drab. Mr. Wolfe's book shows that, under conditions imposed by ethics and "culture," life burns with the deep colors of human emotions and richly marked characters.

Eat and Drink
The characterizations in the book are excellent-made so by the way in which the author has brought to them the little charms which accompany the day-by-day knowledge of a person's habits and entirely human thoughts. The hero in real life does not speak in impassioned periods always, nor does he always act after prayerful premeditation. He is like Mr. Wolfe's characters, who snore and swear, eat and drink, and have their earthy desires as do the best of living men.

In effect, "Look Homeward, Angel" covers the life "of a large family (the Gants of Altamont) for a period of 20 years. It tries to describe not only the visible outer lives of all these people, but even more their buried lives." But essentially the story is that of the life of Eugene Gant, youngest son of this family. It is his vision and his absorbed attention to the rich detail of life which bring the others of the family into being. After all, each man is his own story in real life, and other people exist only as they seem to him.
They were an intensely alive family-these Gants. They loved, hated, and took each other's part with all the vigor they possessed. And it was this vigor-translated to the dreamer and visionary of the family-which made the patter of life in all its tragic and meaningful beauty, a thing of wonder.

According to Mr. Wolfe, "This book was written in simpleness and nakedness of soul. When I began to write the book 20 months ago (this from the time when the manuscript was submitted) I got back something of a child's innocency and wonder. It has in it much that to me is painful and ugly; but, without sentimentality or dishonesty, it seems to me that pain has in inevitable fruition in beauty. And the book has in it sin and terror and darkness-ugly dry lusts, cruelty-the dark, the evil, the forbidden. But I believe it has many other things as well, as I wrote it with strong joy.-"

Fabric of Life
In a note to the reader of the book, the young author tells that: "This is a first book, and in it the author has written of experience which is now far and lost, but which was once part of the fabric of his life. If any reader, therefore, should say that the book is "autobiographical" the writer has no answer for him.-
"This note, however, is addressed principally to those persons whom the writer may have known in the period covered by these pages. To these persons, he would say what he believes they understand already: that this book was written in innocence and nakedness of spirit, and that the writer's main concern was to give fulness [sic], life, and intensity to the actions and people in the book he was creating. Now that it is to be published, he would insist that this book is a fiction, and that he meditated no man's portrait here.
"But we are the sum of all the moments of our lives-all that is ours is in them: we cannot escape or conceal it. If the writer has used the clay of life to make his book, he has only used what all men must.-A novelist may turn over half the people in a town to make a single figure in his novel. This is not the whole method in a book that is written from a middle distance and is without rancour or bitter intention."

Thomas Wolfe, born in Asheville in 1900, is the youngest son of Mrs. Julia E. Wolfe, of 48 Spruce Street, Asheville, and of the late W. O. Wolfe, who died in 1922. For 35 years the W. O. Wolfe Monument Works stood on the south side of the Square here, on the site of the present Jackson building, which was the first "skyscraper" in the growing town. It was on the porch of this old building that a marble angel stood-"poised on one pathistic [sic] foot"-to watch the weaving destinies of Eugene Gant.

Wife [sic] of Student
According to Mrs. Wolfe, proudly telling of this youngest child of hers who has made such a brilliant mark for himself in the world of literature, "Tom" (the name by which he is known to family and friends) seemed to be destined for the life of a student from the beginning of his life. When he was less than two years old, his happiest moments were when his father or his mother would read stories to him. After the story had been repeated two or three times he would take the book, and, using the pictures as a guide, would repeat the whole tale, even with pauses for punctuation at the right moment! It was this uncanny precision which made many people think that he was really reading the stories. At the same time he could speak very plainly.

When he was little more than five years old, a neighbor lad, who was six, started to school and nothing would do but that Tom should go, too. His mother says that she can still recall how eagerly he ran home to her with his little list of books he needed. In his work he easily kept up with those who were several years his senior. School was his whole life form that time on, and he was ready to enter the University of North Carolina when he was little more than 15 years old.

His rapid progress through the grammar grades can be traced, in no little measure, to his mother, who used to take him with her on many trips through various parts of the country. All the other children were so many years older than he, that his mother found he would carry on with her during their travels. The school books always went with them on these trips and Mrs. Wolfe heard lessons each day just as though Tom would go to school the next morning. In this way, he kept up with his classes and even got ahead of them, for Mrs. Wolfe had a way of hearing much longer lessons than did the teachers.

Insight
Perhaps it was the constant association with older people which gave the author of "Look Homeward, Angel" such an insight into the mental life of people of every age, as is manifest in his book.
In 1920, Thomas Wolfe graduated from the University of North Carolina and three years later received his Master of Arts degree from Harvard University, where he worked with George Pierce Baker in the '47 Workshop, following up dramatic experience as a member of the Carolina Playmakers.

He is over six feet five,-this young author whose eagerness and childlike faith in life have taken him so far. He does not like tailors or large social gatherings. So he wears a suit of warmest brown homespun which came from somewhere on the continent and has seen much service, and he sleeps in the morning, coming out to revel in the busy world which works at night when most people are asleep. He will listen for hours to the conversations of queer characters gathered together in some "Greasy Spoon". And the roar and bustle of a newspaper plant will give him pleasure all through a night, while his eager mind feeds on a wealth of color and character.
"Look Homeward, Angel" came from the press Friday, October 18, and the eager readers of this bright pageant, so essentially youthful, will doubtless be numbered in the tens of thousands.