Tar: A Midwest Childhood

by Sherwood Anderson, Ray Lewis White (Editor)

From the jacket flap:

"Tar is written in third person, as the story of Tar Moorhead, who in childhood comes to an awareness of the poverty, the ugliness, the suffering, and, ultimately, of the latent beauty of small-town life in late-nineteenth-century Ohio. It remains a basic document for students of Sherwood Anderson's life — one of the greatest 'representative lives' in American literature.

...

In this volume, biographical and bibliographical annotations, with cross references to A Storyteller's Story and Sherwood Anderson's Memoirs, help establish the factual framework for Tar. Included is a discussion by William Alfred Sutton — who has devoted special study to Anderson's youth — of the recently found diaries of the writer's parents. Also included is an earlier unpublished version of 'The Death in the Forest,' the masterful Anderson short story that appears in Tar"

257 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1926

About the author

Often autobiographical, works of American writer Sherwood Anderson include Winesburg, Ohio (1919).

He supported his family and consequently never finished high school. He successfully managed a paint factory in Elyria before 1912 and fathered three children with the first of his four wives. In 1912, Anderson deserted his family and job.

In early 1913, he moved to Chicago, where he devoted more time to his imagination. He broke with considered materialism and convention to commit to art as a consequently heroic model for youth.

Mainly know for his short stories, most notably the collection Winesburg, Ohio. One can hear its profound influence on fiction in Ernest Miller Hemingway, William Faulkner, Thomas Clayton Wolfe, John Ernst Steinbeck, and Erskine Preston Caldwell.

Most important book collects 22 stories. The stories explore the inhabitants of a fictional version of Clyde, the small farm town, where Anderson lived for twelve early years. These tales made a significant break with the traditional short story. Instead of emphasizing plot and action, Anderson used a simple, precise, unsentimental style to reveal the frustration, loneliness, and longing in the lives of his characters. The narrowness of Midwestern small-town life and their own limitations stunt these characters.

Despite no wholly successful novel, Anderson composed several classic short stories. He influenced Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald and the coming generation.

Reviews

[J. Alfred · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes an author is famous for a particular book, and sometimes when you read something else by that author, you realize why. Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, is a triumphant example of what this tries and fails to be, i.e. charmingly naive, pleasantly mysterious, hopeful.
Tar is the main character's name, except there's no real reason for the nickname. And you won't care about him, or any of the other characters. And the book goes on for three hundred pages. So uh.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was sitting on a shelf in my parents home throughout my childhood. I finally got around to reading it and it was really worthwhile. The sense of interiority that is developed and communicated in the book is unique..the dated features do nothing to detract from the work , It seems far better to read the Original before getting an edited "critical" version of the same book.

[Bert Onstott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wonder why the author wrote this book.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
El inicio se me hizo un poco lento pero los capítulos finales lo compensan con creces. Tremendamente emotivo sin sensiblerías, lleno de profundas reflexiones planteadas desde la mente de un niño

[Dustincecil · Rating 1 out of 5]

This one was a real chore to get through. I almost did not finish it. A lot of snippets of stories from his other memoir were repeated here.