''You Can't Go Home Again'' is a novel by

Thomas Wolfe Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century. Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly origin ...

published posthumously in 1940, extracted by his editor,

Edward Aswell Edward Campbell Aswell (October 9, 1900 – November 5, 1958) was a 20th-century American editor. He was Thomas Wolfe's last editor and edited Wolfe's three posthumous books. This required considerable editorial work as the manuscripts were not i ...

, from the contents of his vast unpublished manuscript ''The October Fair''. It is a sequel to ''

The Web and the Rock ''The Web and the Rock'' is an American bildungsroman novel by Thomas Wolfe, published posthumously in 1939. Like its sequel, '' You Can't Go Home Again'' (and also ''The Hills Beyond'') it was extracted by Edward Aswell from a larger manuscript af ...

'', which, along with the collection ''

The Hills Beyond ''The Hills Beyond'' is a novel by Thomas Wolfe, published posthumously in 1941. Like his earlier novels '' The Web and the Rock'' and '' You Can't Go Home Again'', it was extracted by Edward Aswell from a larger manuscript after Wolfe's death. ' ...

'', was extracted from the same manuscript. The novel tells the story of George Webber, a fledgling author, who writes a book that makes frequent references to his home town of Libya Hill which was actually

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...

. The book is a national success but the residents of the town, being unhappy with what they view as Webber's distorted depiction of them, send the author menacing letters and death threats. Wolfe, as in many of his other novels, explores the changing American society of the 1920s/30s, including the

stock market crash A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especia ...

, the illusion of prosperity, and the unfair passing of time which prevents Webber ever being able to return "home again". In parallel to Wolfe's relationship with the United States, the novel details his disillusionment with Germany during the rise of

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

. Wolfe scholar Jon Dawson argues that the two themes are connected most firmly by Wolfe's critique of capitalism and comparison between the rise of capitalist enterprise in the United States in the 1920s and the rise of

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

in Germany during the same period. The artist

Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...

appears, fictionalized as "Piggy Logan".

Plot summary

George Webber has written a successful novel about his family and hometown. When he returns to that town, he is shaken by the force of outrage and hatred that greets him. Family and lifelong friends feel naked and exposed by what they have seen in his books, and their fury drives him from his home. Outcast, George Webber begins a search for his own identity. It takes him to New York and a hectic social whirl; to Paris with an uninhibited group of expatriates; to Berlin, lying cold and sinister under Hitler's shadow. The journey comes full circle when Webber returns to America and rediscovers it with love, sorrow, and hope.

Title

Wolfe took the title from a conversation with the writer

Ella Winter Leonore (Ella) Sophie Winter Steffens Stewart (1898–1980) was an Australian-British journalist and activist. Early life She was born in 1898 to Freda Lust and Adolph Wertheimer in Nuremberg, Germany. Her parents were Freda Lust and Adolph W ...

, who remarked to Wolfe: "Don't you know you can't go home again?" Wolfe then asked Winter for permission to use the phrase as the title of his book. The title is reinforced in the

denouement Dramatic structure (also known as dramaturgical structure) is the structure of a dramatic work such as a book, play, or film. There are different kinds of dramatic structures worldwide which have been hypothesized by critics, writers and scholar ...

of the novel in which Webber realizes: "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." ( Ellipses in original)

References

External links

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Transcript of interview with Susan J. Matt
To The Best Of Our Knowledge radio {{Thomas Wolfe 1940 American novels Harper & Row books Novels about writers Novels by Thomas Wolfe Novels published posthumously Southern United States in fiction