Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Winesburg, Ohio


From National Public Radio:

Tom Perrotta, author of Election, Little Children and most recently The Abstinence Teacher, chooses a Sherwood Anderson classic, Winesburg, Ohio.

"In the American imagination, small-town life provides an antidote to the cold anonymity of the city," Perrotta writes. "But Winesburg, Ohio feels like a village full of eccentric strangers desperate for a moment of connection."

Perrotta re-read Anderson's 1919 story collection not long ago.

"It made me remember what it felt like to be a high-school sophomore, wandering the quiet night-time streets of my hometown, slowly coming to realize that the people I knew were more complicated and interesting than they appeared," he writes. "Sherwood Anderson's strange and beautiful book made me remember why I'd wanted to be a writer in the first place."

Jeremiah Rickert, a former student of mine and current contributing columnist to OLR, wrote a fine screenplay adaptation of this classic.

Winesburg, Ohio, the screenplay.

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