<p>Shortly before his death at a tragically young age, author Thomas Wolfe presented his editor with an epic masterwork that was subsequently published as three separate novels: <em>You Can't Go Home Again</em>, <em>The Hills Beyond</em>, and <em>The Web and the Rock</em>.</p><p><em>The Web and the Root</em> features the three initial sections of the <em>The Web and the Rock</em>, widely considered to be the book's strongest material. A prequel to <em>You Can't Go Home Again</em>, it is the story of George Webber's momentous journey from Libya Falls, North Carolina, to the Golden City of the North--offering vivid, sometimes cutting depictions of rural pleasures and small-town clannishness while exploring boundless urban possibility and the complex, violent undercurrents of the metropolis. </p>