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This biography is the standard by which every subsequent work on Thomas Wolfe should be judged. A thorough and well documented account of Wolfe's life, travels, obsessions, and fears, it also provides a critical study of how his work came to be published. In many respects, Donald's biography is just as monumental in scope and length as Wolfe's novels. And I think it will give readers an understanding of just how Wolfe can appeal to them differently at different times of their lives. If I had a note on my own reception of Wolfe, I should say that his novels intimidate you in your teens and twenties, capture you in your thirties, stray from you in your forties, become alienated from you in your fifties, and then become wistfully yearned for in your sixties. If I make it to my seventies, I'll no doubt feel differently about them, then, too. ( )

2238 Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe, by David Herbert Donald (read 18 Oct 1989) (Pulitzer Biography prize for 1988) On June 7, 1948, and July 5, 1950, I read Thomas Wolfe's first two books. I was powerfully impressed by Look Homeward, Angel, I well remember. This is a 1987 biography of Wolfe--a very good workmanlike book. Wolfe was born Oct 3, 1900, in Asheville, N.C. and died in Baltimore on Sep 15, 1938. His life was thoroughly pagan and immoral, and as a man he is unadmirable. But his life makes quite a story and I am glad I read this book. It does not, however, make me want to read Wolfe's three posthumous novels. The appeal of Wolfe prose I think is to the young, and I cannot admire its overblown character in my old age. But this book has been worthwhile, since the Wolfe books I read so long ago were major events in my reading life. ( )