Winesburg, Ohio

A vivid and haunting collection of interconnected stories, Winesburg, Ohio portrays a cast of isolated individuals in a small midwestern town at the end of the 19th century. Central to the book is George Willard, a young newspaper writer, to whom a variety of Winesburg’s residents, past and present, attempt to confide their secret desires, failures and innermost truths. Through George we encounter Wing Biddlebaum, run out of another town because of his ‘expressive’ hands; Reverand Curtis Hartman and his incoherent account of religious epiphany; and Doctor Parcival and his strange philosophies such as the supposed ‘secret of life’. A profound exploration of loneliness and the quiet struggle for human connection, Winesburg, Ohio transformed the American short story, shifting the focus from plot to the emotional lives of ordinary people.