Winesburg, Ohio, is often cited as one of the seminal works in modernist American literature. Some commentary states that great American writers such as Hemingway and Faulkner credit Anderson with influencing their writing styles. The book depicts small-town life with a certain darkness that is not very complimentary.

The book contains seemingly unrelated short stories, yet a common character, George Willard, is a journalist. The motley cast of characters shares their experiences and thoughts about loneliness and alienation in Winesburg. Many are hiding out in Winesburg after having had difficulties elsewhere. There are stories of missed dreams, unhappy marriages, sexual perversion, and repression. Some characters seek the truth and meaning of life, sometimes through their religious faith.
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Every so often I come upon a 'classic' worth reading, meaning: an older book that still has something to say; a book that is of its time but not a Sweeping Epic about its time; a story whose humanity isn't lost in the Zeitgeist, then or now. ( )

The author Sherwood Anderson led an interesting life. He was born in 1876, America’s Centennial Year, to a father who was a veteran of the Civil War, and a mother who later took in laundry to make ends meet while her husband drank. After growing up in small town Ohio, he followed his brother to Chicago and began working factory jobs while going to night school to further his education. He left to join the Army for the Spanish American War, and then returned to Chicago to begin a career in advertising and sales. In his spare time he began writing. It wasn’t until his 40s that his first book was published.

He found his first real success with the work that he is mainly remembered today - the short story collection in Winesburg, Ohio. The publisher of his first two books refused to publish Winesburg, calling it “too gloomy”. It was Ben Heubsch, owner of a small publishing house in New York, who gave the book its title and published it to effusive critical reception.

Anderson has been considered by some critics to be more significant for his influence on a younger generation of writers than for any of his own works. Those he influenced include Hemingway, Faulkner, and Sandburg, who he and his third wife entertained at their apartment in New Orleans in the 1920s. He was married four times, taking full advantage of the new sexual freedom of the Roaring Twenties. He died in 1941 of peritonitis while on a cruise in the Caribbean.

In 1998, Modern Library chose Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio as #24 on their list of 100 Best Novels. It’s in fact not a novel, but a series of interconnecting short stories. Each is a character study focused on a particular individual. Every one of Anderson’s characters has their secrets, every one has their disappointments. Taken together the stories provide a sense of the loneliness and frustration hiding beneath the surface of small town pre-industrial life. The stories are heartbreakingly real, and written in simple, matter-of-fact language that I found distinctly Midwestern.

In many of the stories young George Willard, an eager newspaper reporter, and stand-in for the author, plays a part. People come to him and unload their tales. George himself is a character in the tales of his mother and himself that finish out the book.

I really enjoyed these stories. I know some find them depressing, but remember when they were written, with World War I raging and America undergoing enormous change - from agriculture to industry and from rural to urban. Stories looking back to small town life between the Civil War and World War I, and seeing it with all its shortcomings, make perfect sense given the times.

But for me the realness of the stories Anderson captured makes them timeless. ( )

Some strange groupings if little fictions.

Goes from funny and fascinating to confusingly convoluted.

But I can't hate on the book written about my ancestor's small town in Ohio. ( )

The stories in Winesburg, Ohio, tell of a restless longing for something that the characters can’t quite define, but which may be community or connection. It has an aura of disappointment verging on despair. The town is filled with lonely souls who seem detached from everyone around them, except for young reporter George Willard, who seems to be the last remaining thread connecting the people of Winesburg. What will happen to the town when George Willard leaves?

Anderson seems to capture the beginning of the Midwest’s shift from agricultural economy to manufacturing economy and the waning of its small towns. Everyone with Midwestern roots ought to read this book. ( )