Today my Southern Fiction class took a field trip to the Thomas Wolfe Memorial. We had begun the summer by reading Wolfe's book Look Homeward, Angel, so this was a great way to round things out. I happened to write a research paper about Thomas Wolfe as well, so if you are curious about the guy, just ask. I will spare you too many details here.
But Wolfe was an interesting man, born and raised here in Asheville in the early part of the 20th century. I really liked his novel once I got accustomed to his verbose style. Initially, the manuscript was over 350,000 words. But the guy had decent editors who helped him scale back. In future writing endeavors, it wasn't uncommon for him to have manuscripts of over one million words. Talk about wordy!!!
He also had a rather unorthodox home life. The house we toured today was actually his mother's boarding house that she ran and lived in while the rest of the family lived a few blocks away. Essentially, she and her husband remained married, but weren't much of a couple—nor were they great parents, according to Tom. In a letter to his mother he once wrote, "I think of...my childhood most of all as a man thinks of a dream full of pain, ugliness, misunderstanding and terror." Ouch! Makes my family look like The Brady Bunch.
They have done a marvelous job of preserving family materials. Much of the house is original with family furnishings. There was an arson fire in the house back in the 80's that required over 2 million dollars to restore, but I was fascinated by how much was original to the family—including old books, beds, and school diplomas.
Again, if you'd ever like to know more, I'd be happy to share!
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