Thomas Wolfe – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My reading levels are at all time highs thanks to lonely-man evenings in the Triangle de Research, and having burnt out on CSS for Head Wound Victims, and being thoroughly disgusted by my genetic inability to learn Chinese in a week, I have been reverting to literature, specifically, being in Rome, southern literature.
At the Raleigh airport last week, on my way back to the land of ice and snow, I visited the little-book-store-that-could by the US Air gates, where the lady is extra-nice and complimentary about my book taste, and bought, against my better judgment, a fat volume of Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again. This is a re-read. I loved the book in college when I was tuning my mental piano before writing my first execrable novel: Parallel Roundings. Wolfe is the Jack Kerouac of the Southern Depression, a UNC grad and Asheville native. I’m loving the book — great breathless purple prose and the kind of social nastiness that Sinclair Lewis was so great at.
Best Southern author in my mind (and shut up Faulkner fans) is Barry Hannah. Geronimo Rex remains the funniest book I have ever read.
I blogged about it, but have to ask, have you ever read Robert Coover’s The Public Burning? Brilliant, hysterical book.
I’ve read some Coover, but I will check out the Public Burning.
If you are looking for Southern literature, check out Raleigh-native David Sedaris. Comic genius. All of his books are superb, but I’d recommend “Me Talk Pretty One Day”. One of the few books I’ve ever laughed out loud while reading.
also check out work by George Saunders. one of the best.