Eugene leaves the American South for Harvard New York and Europe determined to make his way as a writer. On the boat home he meets Esther, the woman who is to dominate his life. Autobiographical, vital, and passionate, Wolfe's second novel Of Time and the River blazes with energy and life. Like his first novel Look Homeward, Angel, it tells the story of Eugene Gant, Wolfe's fictional alter-ego as he grows up in a dysfunctional family in the American South and discovers his true vocation as a writer.