Marching Men (1917) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Both fictional and autobiographical, Anderson's second novel is a coming of age story that explores the individual and collective identities shaping American life. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist literature admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson's Marching Men is a powerful work of fiction that helped establish him as a leading realist writer of his generation. "In a country of so many varied climates and occupations as America it is absurd to talk of an American type. The country is like a vast disorganised undisciplined army, leaderless, uninspired, going in route-step along the road to they know not what end." At a young age, Norman McGregor, a misfit dreamer, knows this to be true of his country. Fourteen-year-old Norman, ironically named "Beaut" for his homely appearance, works alongside his mother at a bakery in the town of Coal Creek. When frustration over unpaid debts leads him to close the bakery, a group of disgruntled miners nearly destroys his family's only source of income. At the last second, a group of soldiers marches in to protect them, inspiring Norman with a sense of unity. As a young man, he leaves his hometown for Chicago, where he develops a relationship with a woman who introduces him to politics and labor organizing. Unable to shake the memory of the marching soldiers, he dedicates his life to collective empowerment. Marching Men is a story of the American Dream, for all of its difficult truths and convenient fictions. This edition of Sherwood Anderson's Marching Men is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Back Jacket
At his family bakery in the town of Coal Creek, Norman McGregor prepares loaves of bread for delivery while dreaming of an uncertain future. Only fourteen years old, he will soon come to know the power of organization, the beauty and terror of strength in numbers. First, he will have to leave home. Marching Men is a novel by Sherwood Anderson.
