Dark Laughter

Book excerpt: Dark Laughter (1925) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Inspired by his own decision to abandon his family and career in order to establish himself as a professional writer, Anderson explores the guilts, routines, desires, and disappointments driving the lives of many Americans in the early-twentieth century. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist fiction admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Dark Laughter was his only bestseller. Inspired by the stream of consciousness style of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Anderson produced a novel that remains controversial for its depictions of race, class, and sexuality. >“Bruce Dudley stood near a window that was covered with flecks of paint and through which could be faintly seen, first a pile of empty boxes, then a more or less littered factory yard running down to a steep bluff, and beyond the brown waters of the Ohio River.” Bruce, a factory worker in Old Harbor, Indiana, is your average working man. He lives a simple life, keeps a low profile, spends his money at the bar with his friends, and tries not to get fired. As far as anyone knows, there is nothing special about him whatsoever; he is a drifter who found his way to Old Harbor by chance and settled down to make himself some money. But Bruce was born in Old Harbor; raised on its streets and educated in its schools, he lived most of his life by another name: John Stockton, Indiana native turned Chicago reporter. Married with kids, he was happy as far as anyone could tell. Up until the day he left, he was still John Stockton, but the change that came over him late in life was too great to resist. He needed a new name, a new life. He wanted to start over in the place where he began. When an opportunity comes to work as a gardener for the factory owner’s wife, Bruce soon finds it impossible to resist her brazen advances. Dark Laughter is a tale of guilt, identity, and shame from master storyteller Sherwood Anderson. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.