You Can't Go Home Again

You Can't Go Home Again is a novel by Thomas Wolfe. It was published posthumously in 1940 from the October Fair manuscript. The novel tells the story of George Webber, a beginning author, who writes a book that makes frequent references to his home town of Libya Hill. When the residents of Libya Hill read the book and see the egregious distortions Webber penned, they begin sending Webber death threats and menacing letters expressing their discontent with the novel, even though it is held in high regard in the rest of the country. Wolfe, as in many of his other novels, explores the themes of a changing America, including the stock market crash and the illusion of prosperity, and the unfair passing of time, which inhibits George from ever being able to go "home again". The book is one of his more popular novels, along with Look Homeward Angel.

The title comes from the finale of the novel when protagonist George Webber realizes, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

“You can’t go home again” has entered American speech to mean that after you have left your country town or provincial backwater city for a sophisticated metropolis, you can’t return to the narrow confines of your previous way of life, and, more generally, attempts to relive youthful memories will always fail. Susan Matt has suggested that the phrase is sometimes spoken to mean that you can’t return to your place of origin without being deemed a failure. In this regard, the phrase is used as a self-admonition or warning. You can’t go home again ambitious Americans tell themselves. They say it as a warning to stick it out, to not dare go home and subject themselves to the prospect of being a failure in the eyes of their family and the friends of their youth.^[1]

In popular culture

• In the Peanuts episode entitled Snoopy's Reunion, Sally says to Charlie Brown, "You know big brother what's his name is right, you can't go home again." This was said after they realized that the city had built a parking lot over Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
• In the X-Men: The Animated Series episode "Days of Future Past – Part 1", Rogue and Gambit give a copy of the novel to Beast while visiting him in jail. Beast recalls Thomas Wolfe and fondly describes the book as an old favorite. Gambit remarks that Beast is easy to shop for, saying "just buy the books that have the most dust on them." The episode explores similar themes on the passing of time as dealt with in the novel.
• DJ Shadow included a track of the same name on his 2003 album The Private Press.
• On Straylight Run's 2004 self-titled album, the song "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" uses the title You Can't Go Home Again as lyrics in the bridge. The song deals with similar themes as well.
• John Steinbeck refers fondly to the book in his novel Travels with Charley: In Search of America when he returns to his home in California's central coast.
• You can see the title of the book written on a wall in the clip for Suedehead by singer Morrissey.
• In Stephen King's novel, The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, the character Eddie Dean has a dream in which he is holding "You Can't Go Home Again, by Thomas Wolfe", but the cover art and content are not Wolfe's.
• "You Can't Go Home Again" (along with "Look Homeward Angel") is the answer to a high school quiz bowl question on a season 4 episode of the television show Friday Night Lights.
• In the beginning of Steve Earle's "Hometown Blues," the singer says: "This here's my hometown blues, with apologies to Thomas Wolfe and Doc Watson."
• The ABC Movie of the Week broadcast an adaptation starring James Franciscus in the 1960s. It was noted the script was based on Wolfe's novel.
• Country singer Don Williams alludes to the novel in his song "Good Ole Boys Like Me."
• In the opening scene of the 1995 film "Now and Then", narrator and main character Samantha (Demi Moore) says "Thomas Wolfe once said you can't go home again. Well, that's great for old Tom. But he wasn't a chick who made a pact with her friends when she was twelve to get together whenever any one of them needed each other. So here I am driving back to my childhood home in Indiana, a place I can tell you I never wanted to see again."
• Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Hawkins refers to the book in his song "Prodigal Son" (from the album 10 Kinds of Lonely), saying "my whole heart shook when I read in that book that you can never go home again."
• The quote "You Can't Go Home Again" was mentioned in the play "Forever Plaid"

References