The End of the Book

by Porter Shreve

The End of the Book is the story of an aspiring contemporary novelist who may or may not be writing a sequel to Sherwood Anderson's classic Winesburg, Ohio. Adam Clary works in Chicago for a famous internet company on a massive project to digitize the world's books, but secretly he hates his job and wishes to be a writer at a time when the book as physical object and book culture itself have never been more threatened.

Counterpointing Adam's story is that of George Willard, the young protagonist of Anderson's book, who arrives in Chicago around 1900 when it was the fastest-growing city in American history. Through alternating chapters, we follow George's travails, including his marriage to the wealthy daughter of his boss, his affair with his hometown sweetheart, his artistic crisis, breakdown and flight, and along the way we see the echoes and intersections between his life and Adam's as they struggle in two similar Americas through two similar times in the life of the book.

Genres: Fiction, Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 10, 2014

About the author

Porter Shreve grew up in Washington, DC, and has lived in over a dozen states. His novels — The Obituary Writer, Drives Like a Dream, When the White House Was Ours, and The End of the Book — have been on best of the year lists in many newspapers and magazines including the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Times.

Co-editor of six anthologies, he has published fiction, nonfiction, Op-Eds and book reviews in Salon, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

He is Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Reviews

[diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

An absolute rollercoaster from start to finish, if a rollercoaster began at the top of a dizzying spiral of rage and ended after a long horizontal stretch. Started off hating it with everything fiber of my being, then found myself enjoying George Willard's story while becoming indifferent to Adam's. I get what this book was doing, what it wanted to be, and I think it was successful thematically even though I would have seen it done differently. Conclusion: first person continues to be the bane of my existence.

2.75/5 stars

[Michael Downs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvelous homage to Winesburg, Ohio and to Sherwood Anderson. Intricately structured and deftly executed with memorable side characters. For fans of Winesburg and Anderson, this will be a treat. And if you haven't read Winesburg, do that, too.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

One my favorite books I've read this year. I flew through this...cool finding out he taught at Purdue for 10 years

[Lars · Rating 4 out of 5]

As finely woven a pair of parallel novellas as you will read. Though separated by a century, the two storylines share a thematic tie (upon which they ultimately consummate) with the literary legacy of Sherwood Anderson. Anderson's own ghost seems to appear in the body of an aging academic whose great accomplishment had been the first volume of an exhaustive Anderson biography. Like Anderson, he would not build upon or even match his initial achievement, laboring upon a never-to-be-published volume two of his Anderson biography amidst the personal drama and restlessness that dominated his later decades. But like Anderson, his ultimate gift is his influence upon others. In the first thread of the book, Shreve introduces the old academic and his son, Adam, whose own literary aspirations have fizzled as he finds himself seemingly trapped in a lucrative-but-unsuitable profession and questioning his young marriage. Within the thread of the second story, we find ourselves in a sequel to Winesburg, Ohio, following George Willard from the train platform of that sleepy backwater into the bustle of 1904 Chicago, where he has become a successful adman, married to the boss's daughter. Yet like the Adam of 2008, George begins to feel the strain of his own artistic ambitions against the constraints of his outwardly cozy existence. Both stories tell the tale of an aspiring artist in society and of the personal struggle to find self-expression. It is that oft-expressed daemon that Anderson himself had felt, having abruptly abandoning his job, wife, and children in Ohio to pursue the writing life in Chicago. Well paced and elegantly planned, Shreve's book alternates between his old and modern Chicago storylines by chapter, each informing the other as events and characters in each seem to play similar roles while remaining unique in their contexts and unfolding decisions. Ultimately, the relationship of these parallel narratives becomes more apparent as you progress through them, leaving one with a fulfilling sense of the cycle of artistic and personal influence - writer-to-writer and father-to-son - that we share with the past as we write our own futures.

[Michael Brockley · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE END OF THE BOOK by Porter Shreve is the parallel tale of a Sherwood Anderson stand- in and a man who wants to write the sequel to WINESBURG, OHIO. One man flees a loveless marriage for the loneliness of his Muse and the other strengthens his relationship with wife. This is the story of how they came to these resolutions. This is a book of quiet storms in which two men struggle against corporatizing jobs, the emotional upheavals of love and eccentric, distant fathers whom they cherish. Uktimstely, THE END OF THE BOOK is about beginning, about sitting before a blank screen or piece of paper and striking the keys . It's about finally saying, "I don't give a pin for a fancy title anymore."

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting sequel to Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

[Natalie]

The premise of this book is interesting, but the writing was dense and didn't engage me. I couldn't get through it.

[Cynthia Gunnels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this, it was engaging from start to finish!

[Mills College Library]

Fiction S5614e 2014