The House of Breath by William Goyen (1950). Poetic, serpentine prose becomes cascades of memory and emotions in this story of a man who returns to his tiny hometown of Charity, Texas. As he lovingly depicts the town—its landscape, folk, speech, superstitions, and fables—Goyen provides what the novelist Katherine Anne Porter described as “a sustained evocation of the past, a long search for place and identity, and the meaning of an intense personal experience; an attempt to cleanse the heart of its mysterious burden of guilt.”
Total Points: 4 (JBud 4)