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Summary
Summary
"One of the most American books ever written. . . . Thornton Wilder's best, and most unexpected, book." -Wilfrid Sheed
Meet George Marvin Brush, one of Thornton Wilder's most memorable characters. Brush, a traveling textbook salesman, is a fervent religious convert who is determined to lead a good life. With sad and sometimes hilarious consequences, his travels take him through smoking cars, bawdy houses, banks, and campgrounds from Texas to Illinois--and into the soul of America itself.
This edition of Heaven's My Destination includes an illuminating afterword by Wilder's nephew, Tappan Wilder, that draws on such unique sources as Thornton Wilder's unpublished letters, business records, and obscure family recollections, adding a special dimension to this hilarious tale about goodness in a fallen world.
Author Notes
One of the most honored and versatile of modern writers, Thornton Wilder combined a career as a successful novelist with work for the theater that made him one of this century's outstanding dramatists. It was an early short novel, however, that first brought him fame. The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), a bestseller that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927, is the story of a group of assorted people who happen to be on a bridge in Peru when it collapses. Ingeniously constructed and rich in its philosophical implications about fate and synchronicity, Wilder's book would seem to be the first well-known example of a formula that has become a cliche in popular literature.
His attraction to classical themes is manifested in The Woman of Andros (1930), a tragedy about young love in pre-Christian Greece, and The Ides of March (1948), set in the time of Julius Caesar and told in letters and documents covering a long span of years. Heaven's My Destination (1934), is a seriocomic and picaresque story about a young book salesman traveling through the Midwest during the early years of the Great Depression.Theophilus North (1973), Wilder's last novel, disappointed many reviewers, but it provided its author with opportunities to offer some wry observations on the life of the idle rich in Newport during the summer of 1926 and to ponder in the story of his alter ego what might have happened if Wilder had stayed home, so to speak, instead of becoming Thornton Wilder. As a serious writer of fiction, Wilder's main claim rests on The Eighth Day (1967), an intellectual thriller, which the N.Y. Times called "the most substantial fiction of his career." It won the National Book Award for fiction in 1968.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
Library Journal Review
Wilder is on a roll, with several of his titles coming back into print. Heaven's My Destination (1934) offers protagonist George Brush, a traveling salesman attempting to live a virtuous life despite peddling his wares in less than virtuous places. The epistolary Ides of March (1948) retells the tragedy of Julius Caesar through letters among the major players. Both volumes feature new introductions by J.D. McClatchy and Kurt Vonnegut, respectively, along with scholarly notes and a biographical portrait of Wilder. Jump on 'em. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
Foreword | p. ix |
Chapter 1 p. 1 | |
George Brush tries to save some souls in Texas and Oklahoma | |
Doremus Blodgett and Margie McCoy | |
Thoughts on arriving at the age of twenty-three | |
Brush draws his savings from the bank | |
His criminal record: Incarceration No. 2 | |
Chapter 2 p. 19 | |
Oklahoma City | |
Chiefly conversation | |
The adventure in the barn | |
Margie McCoy gives some advice | |
Chapter 3 p. 29 | |
Good times at Camp Morgan | |
Dick Roberts' nightmares | |
Dinner with Mississippi Corey | |
Chapter 4 p. 44 | |
Further good times at Camp Morgan | |
Important conversation with a girl named Jessie Mayhew | |
Dick Roberts' nightmares concluded | |
George Brush refuses some money | |
Chapter 5 p. 62 | |
Kansas City | |
Queenie's boarding-house | |
First word of Father Pasziewski | |
George Brush drunk and disorderly | |
Chapter 6 p. 75 | |
Kansas City | |
Sunday dinner at Ma Crofut's | |
More news of Father Pasziewski | |
A moment of dejection in a Kansas City hospital | |
Chapter 7 p. 90 | |
Three adventures of varying educational importance: the evangelist; the medium; first steps in ahimsa | |
Chapter 8 p. 104 | |
Kansas City | |
The courting of Roberta Weyerhauser | |
Herb's legacies | |
Chapter 9 p. 118 | |
Ozarksville, Missouri | |
Rhoda May Gruber | |
Mrs. Efrim's hold-up man | |
George Brush's criminal record: Incarceration No. 3 | |
Chapter 10 p. 130 | |
Ozarksville, Missouri | |
George Brush meets a great man and learns something of importance about himself | |
The trial | |
Chapter 11 p. 152 | |
A road in Missouri | |
Chiefly conversation, including the account of a religious conversion | |
George Brush again sins against ahimsa | |
Chapter 12 p. 165 | |
Kansas City | |
Serious conversation in a park | |
A wedding | |
Practically an American home | |
Chapter 13 p. 179 | |
George Brush loses something | |
Last news of Father Pasziewski | |
Thoughts on arriving at the age of twenty-four | |
Afterword | p. 187 |
Acknowledgments | p. 209 |