Look Homeward, Angel

"Home, sweet home" - wie nah ist die Familie Gant zuweilen ihrem Glück! Wenn sich die Kinderschar vollzählig an der üppig gedeckten Tafel einfindet, könnte das häusliche Leben kaum inniger sein. Doch der Schein trügt. Hinter den Ritualen der Zusammengehörigkeit lauern Missgunst, Überdruss, tiefe Entzweiung: hier der Vater, ein jähzorniger Alkoholiker, dort die Mutter, eine berechnende Krämerseele, die das familiäre Idyll ihrer unstillbaren Raffgier opfert. Und in diese Verhältnisse wird der Romanheld Eugene Gant hineingeboren. Als Letztgeborener muss er sich von vornherein damit abfinden, unter seinesgleichen ein Fremdling zu sein ...

The stunning, classic coming-of-age novel written by one of America's foremost Southern writers

A legendary author on par with William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Wolfe published Look Homeward, Angel , his first novel, about a young man's burning desire to leave his small town and tumultuous family in search of a better life, in 1929. It gave the world proof of his genius and launched a powerful legacy.
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 o f every reader.

The first novel by the great American novelist, now the subject of a major new film, Genius, starring Jude Law, Colin Firth, Dominic West and Nicole Kidman.

Eugene Gant, born in 1900 to hard-drinking stone-cutter Oliver and entrepreneurial Eliza, grows up in small-town America. Both lonely outsider and passionate chronicler of American life, Eugene experiences upheaval and family tragedy before coming to realise that he must leave his home behind if he is to forge his own path in the world. This is the dazzlingly rich first novel from one of the most brilliant and mercurial voices of early twentieth-century, who was a major influence on writers including Hunter S. Thompson, Ray Bradbury, Philip Roth and the Beats.


This new edition includes an introduction by Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian. Wolfe's second novel, Of Time and the River, continuing the story of Eugene Gant, is also now available in Penguin Classics.

Rezension:

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, author of 'The Historian'