THOMAS WOLFE MEMORIAL
For a boarder at Thomas Wolfe’s sprawling childhood home in the early 1900s, it could be a nightmare: a curious young boy, left to roam freely in the oddly configured structure, spies on life around him and later turns his observations into a renowned novel, Look Homeward, Angel.
The book, published in 1929, was a coming-of-age, tell-all tale set in the western North Carolina town of Altamont, a fictitious name given Asheville, where the novelist grew up in the boardinghouse run by his enterprising mother, Julia Wolfe. The domicile, known as Old Kentucky Home and called “Dixieland” in the book, caused a rift in the large Wolfe family. Today, it stands amid modern city buildings as a monument that brings to
