Eugene Gant, born in 1900 to hard-drinking stone-cutter Oliver and entrepreneurial Eliza, grows up in small-town America. Both lonely outsider and passionate chronicler of American life, Eugene exper

It is 1920 and Eugene Gant leaves the South for Harvard, New York and Europe, as part of his preparation for teaching and writing. On the boat home he meets Esther Jack, the woman who is to dominate