Winesburg, Ohio

Winesburg, Ohio begins with a sort of prologue, in which an old writer imagines all the people he has known as "grotesques," warped in their pursuits of various truths. A series of stories ensues, each concerned with a single resident of Winesburg. The first, entitled "Hands," describes Wing Biddlebaum, a recluse with remarkable hands that he cannot control, who has fled from false accusations of molesting a boy in another town. The second, "Paper Pills," is about Doctor Reefy, an aging medical man who marries one of his young patients, only to have her die six months later. In the third, "Mother," we meet Elizabeth Willard, the mother of the book's central character, George Willard, who is a young reporter for the local paper. Elizabeth is a sick woman, trapped in an unhappy marriage, and she imagines herself locked in a struggle with her husband for influence over George.