Going home again

Abstract

In Thomas Wolfe's 1940 novel You Can't Go Home Again, the main character, George Webber, writes a novel that depicts his hometown in an unflattering light, leading to death threats and exclusion of the author from his home community. More than simply a case of vigilante exclusion, Webber's severed connection with his hometown is part of his exploration of a changing America, about the relationship between city and country and the tensions that surround a rapidly urbanizing country. This nostalgic disconnect has entered our lexicon to refer to the line between those who have moved to the " sophisticated" metropolis from the rural backwater (or perhaps now the bucolic suburb or exurb), and for whom a return, as Susan Matt has suggested, might constitute a failure.