Sherwood Anderson

The day in Sherwood Anderson's life, Nov. 28, 1912, has assumed mythic proportions in the story of American literature. This was the day he "left business for literature," simply walking out of his office as president of the Anderson Manufacturing Co. (Home of "Roof-Fix Cure for Roof Troubles") in Elyria, Ohio, not only giving up a dream of becoming rich in American business, but also abandoning his responsibilities as a middle-class citizen, including a wife and three small children.Although this account oversimplifies a process that took several messy, frequently unhappy years, it is nevertheless true in spirit, making Anderson the best-known archetype of the gifted American caught between the pull of riches, success, respectability, and family responsibility on the one hand and the call of creativity, probably to be accompanied only by penury and disappointment, on the other.