When Thomas Wolfe looked homeward, it was to Asheville, NC. The city, under the pseudonym “Altamont,” even provided the backdrop for one of the author's most revered works, the autobiographical Look Homeward Angel published in 1929.

Breathing such life into the location that it emerged as a fully developed, flesh-and-bone character, Wolfe propelled his Southern home beyond the rural mountains that encircled it and gave it a permanent place on the literary landscape. The Old Kentucky Home boardinghouse on Spruce Street where Wolfe spent much of his childhood — immortalized as “Dixieland” in Homeward — now stands as one of Asheville's most famous landmarks. And the Carrara angel that so inspired the writer can be found just 22 miles south of Asheville in Hendersonville's Oakdale Cemetery.