Discovering the Unfound Door

Books that Changed my Life: Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel”

This is the first in an occasional series on books that shaped me as a reader, a writer, and a human being. Trust me, it’s not going to be as snooty as that sounds.

It’s perhaps a little strange to declare a specific book “life changing” when you can barely describe the plot after reading it 30 years ago. But in the case of Look Homeward, Angel, what the novel means to me is less about what I read in the book and more about the fact that I even read it.

This all starts way back during my sophomore year at Washington and Lee University, taking an English course on Southern American literature. Despite being a journalism major, a part of me wanted to be an English major. It would make sense — I’d always wanted to be a writer of some sort and I was an insatiable bookworm from the time I learned to read. Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel occupied a prime spot on the syllabus.