Almost a DNF, but I’m a bitter-ender. I’m glad I kept going, too — this total slog was rescued by a perfect final sentence.

Famously, this chronicle of rural America is notable for its "ideas" more than its characters. And I guess I agree with its baseline premise that every person is born alone and spends their life striving for human connection in various forms (and to varying degrees of success). Anderson just doesn't have the juice to ground his ideas in compelling characters.

Each short story presents a new townsperson who nakedly stands in for an idea of depravity, desire, ambition, etc. Often, Anderson will explicitly frame what's about to unfold (e.g., "This sicko, horndog pastor is about to cream his pants peeping at his lady neighbor laying in bed — and feels bad about it!").

Not a lot is left to the imagination, yet we get no sense of interiority. Every character seems like a helpless victim of their circumstances, completely unable to diagnose why they're unhappy or what they might do about it. As you make your way through the book, it gets repetitive and altogether depressing to spend time with the miserable townsfolk of Winesburg, where every person is trapped by their mistakes and misfortunes. I mostly stuck around for the lovely descriptions of the Ohio countryside.

Thankfully, it stuck the landing. The final sentence, as George Willard zooms off toward his unknown future away from Winesburg, stitches everything back together. We all are alone, but we are also part of a constellation inextricably tied to one another. That felt true to me in a way that most of the book did not.