Winesburg, Ohio
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
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.
Customer Reviews
Poignant and Powerful
My father gave me this book when I was thirteen or fourteen and said it was one of his favorites, maybe his very favorite fictional piece. I read it then and actually liked it, although I realize now that probably half of it went over my head. I read it now and am blown away by the emotion it brings out in me. This book is, as many people have insisted, a set of character sketches, loosely intertwined and collected by George Willard, the young reporter of Winesburg. Each story, taken on its own, is a powerful piece of descriptive writing. Perhaps (as some have said) the book is outdated, a period piece. Perhaps it's a bit sentimental, a bit flippant. But the fact remains that, whether or not these stories show the inner workings of the human soul, they are fiction at its best: beautifully written, they make you think, and they evoke true emotion because the characters and their struggles are so real. Read these stories to see good fiction at work.