O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life — Thomas Wolfe

From an Amazon review:

"As Pat Conroy writes on the rear jacket panel of this book, "'O Lost' is the greatest news for Thomas Wolfe lovers since the publication of 'Look Homeward, Angel.'" The statement is not hyperbole. This is it---the original manuscript that Wolfe delivered to the offices of Scribners, the version around which have swirled controversies and questions ever since and yet which has remained unseen by the public until now. Was Thomas Wolfe a sort of idiot savant, a wildly impulsive and uncontrolled writer who desperately needed the firm professional hand of a Maxwell Perkins to bring form and control to his inspired ramblings? Or was he simply a genius, so far ahead of his time that even the likes of Perkins could not comprehend what he had in the innovative and unconventional manuscript of "O Lost"? On the basis of this new edition, it might be said that he was a bit of both.
For the lover of "Look Homeward, Angel," the tired phrase "essential reading" is an understatement. There is magnificent new material here (this version is 66,000 words longer than LHA). For me, the most notable appears at the beginning--a long section detailing the early life of W.O. Gant, lovingly rendered, heartbreakingly real, writing so vivid that it must be admitted that Perkins made a terrible mistake in cutting it; it is as good as anything Thomas Wolfe ever wrote. Too, the famous kaleidoscopic scene in which we see dozens of Altamont residents waking one morning in 1908 as newspapers are delivered is here much longer, much more inclusive, with far more wonderful character sketches--writing so pure that it seems to capture for all time what a certain time and place was...."