First published 1988
When literary critic Edmund Wilson dies, Frederick Exley sets out across America on a strange pilgrimage. He wanders through a country where authentic literary culture seems to be vanishing, replaced by something hollow and commercial. Exley seeks traces of Wilson, the last great man of American letters, hoping to understand what made him essential to the intellectual life of the nation. But the journey becomes something more personal as Exley confronts his own struggles as a writer. He moves through landscapes both geographic and psychological, encountering the debris of a literary world that may no longer exist. The search for Wilson becomes a search for meaning in his own creative life. What emerges is a meditation on literary ambition, cultural decay, and the price of artistic integrity in modern America.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: journey-of-self-discovery, search-for-meaning
Setting: America
Period: 20th-century
274 pages · Paperback · Vintage