An Apple Books Classic edition.

Thomas Wolfe’s sweeping debut novel draws on his own restless youth to create an expansive American epic about family, ambition, and the ache of outgrowing your own home.

Eugene Gant grows up in Altamont, a mountain town in North Carolina, caught between his father’s volcanic rages and his mother’s relentless frugality as she runs a chaotic boarding house. Surrounded by boarders, siblings, and small-town gossip, Eugene dreams of something larger—books, cities, and a world beyond the mountains that have always hemmed him in.

As he pushes toward education and escape, he discovers that leaving means severing ties that shaped him. Lyrical, sprawling, and emotionally raw, Look Homeward, Angel captures both the exhilaration of breaking free and the guilt of turning your back on the people who made you.