Thomas Wolfe: A Writer's Life

by Ted Mitchell

An author of tremendous energy, rich imagination, and powerful rhetorical style, Thomas Wolfe was the first novelist from North Carolina to become a major force in American literature. In his famous novel Look Homeward, Angel and other works, he vividly portrayed aspects of life in the mountains of North Carolina in the early twentieth century.

This book traces Wolfe's life and career from his birth in Asheville, NC, in 1900 until his untimely death in 1938. It includes information about his parents and siblings; his patron, Aline Bernstein; his editor, Maxwell Perkins; and his agent, Elizabeth Nowell. This biography draws on Wolfe's writings and other materials about him in archival collections in Asheville, NC, and at both UNC-Chapel Hill and Harvard University. Numerous photographs of Thomas Wolfe, his family, and his associates illustrate the text.

An earlier edition of Thomas Wolfe: A Writer's Life originally was published by the Thomas Wolfe Memorial State Historic Site in Asheville. This sustantially revised edition contains new material by the author.

Genres: Biography

120 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 1999

Reviews

[Mark Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

There have been several biographies written about the American author Thomas Wolfe, and Ted Mitchell’s 1999 book Thomas Wolfe: A Writer’s Life, fills an important gap by giving the reader a shorter overview of Wolfe’s life and work. Coming in at 120 pages, it’s more concise than the full-length Wolfe biographies by Andrew Turnbull, Elizabeth Nowell, and David Herbert Donald.

Mitchell gives the reader a good sense of Wolfe’s personality and psychology. The Thomas Wolfe Memorial is the house where Wolfe grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. Tom’s mother operated it as a boarding house from the time Tom was 6 years old. When I visited the house last week, I was puzzled that the site director hadn't pointed out Tom’s bedroom to me. As we were about to leave the second floor I asked, “Which bedroom was Tom’s?” She said “Tom didn’t have one. He moved around from room to room depending on which rooms weren’t being rented.” It struck me immediately that this was a key fact about Thomas Wolfe.

Wolfe stood 6 feet 6 inches tall, and he wrote “the world of six feet six...is the strangest and most lonely world there is.” (p.43) Wolfe was always searching for a home, for a sense of belonging. Mitchell quotes from a letter of Wolfe’s written towards the end of his brief life: “although you can’t go home again, the home of every one of us is in the future: there is no other way.” (p.80)

Mitchell paints a portrait of Wolfe as sometimes difficult, sometimes pleasant, but always devoted to his work and craft. After going through the exhibit on Thomas Wolfe’s life in the Thomas Wolfe Memorial and seeing all of the photos of Wolfe throughout his life, I was struck by how serious Wolfe looks in almost every photo. You can tell this is a man who was thinking deeply about life and art.

I don’t know Thomas Wolfe’s work very deeply, but I found it moving to see the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, the site where he was born (it’s now a YMCA parking lot) and his gravesite during the same afternoon. It’s hard to explain exactly why I was so moved. Part of it is the tragedy of a life being cut short, wondering what might have been. And part of it is the sense I get from Wolfe of devoting himself so fully to the creative life. I was moved when I walked through beautiful Riverside Cemetery, on top of rolling hills, on a gorgeous sunny afternoon, and came upon Thomas Wolfe’s grave. Part of the inscription reads, “A beloved American author.” As someone who puts words to paper, you can’t ask for a better tribute than that. There is a small urn in front of Wolfe’s grave. Instead of bouquets, it’s filled with pens. I was annoyed with myself for not having anything with me, no coin, no rock, nothing to deposit in homage. But as I stood at Wolfe’s grave, I saw a penny in the mud in front of the stone. I picked it up, brushed it off, and put it on his headstone. I felt much better. The next day, on a rainy afternoon, I returned to Wolfe’s grave with a pen, which I put in the urn. The gesture was now complete, homage had been properly paid.

I learned many interesting facts about Thomas Wolfe from this book. One of them was that when Wolfe was preparing to attend college, he wanted to attend Princeton. Had he gone to Princeton, Wolfe likely would have encountered another young man with literary aspirations: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Wolfe would have overlapped with Fitzgerald at Princeton for a year, but Wolfe ended up going to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he didn’t meet Fitzgerald until 1930, when they were both in Switzerland.

Mitchell gives the reader an excellent overview of the illness that struck Wolfe down in his prime. What seemed at first to be a high fever and pneumonia was actually miliary tuberculosis. When doctors thought that Wolfe might be suffering from a brain tumor as well, he was sent to the finest brain surgeon in the country, Walter Dandy. Dandy soon discovered that the disease had spread to Wolfe’s brain, and during surgery, he knew it would be impossible to remove all the tubercules. Wolfe died three days later, at just 37.

Ted Mitchell’s book Thomas Wolfe: A Writer’s Life, is an excellent overview of Wolfe’s life and art.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim volume is an interesting look at the life of author Thomas Wolfe.

[Dakota Waddell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and sweet but packed with pertinent information. Great way to break into the world of Wolfe