The tale of an American writer's journey through his own imaginative world and through the world of facts, with many of his experiences and impressions among other writers—told in many notes—in four books—and an Epilogue. This is a memoir of Midwestern life and culture from the author of Winesburg, Ohio.

"The voice of the soliloquist . . . amplifies the drama of A Story Teller's Story, as does the persistent theme of escape, from an America of fact and factories, marketing and manufacturing, to the borderless Ohios of imagination and creation."
—From the introduction by Thomas Lynch

"The American Portrait of the Artist."— Charles Baxter

"Probably unequaled. . . for the austerity of moral courage and sincerity of conviction. . . .A book which should be read by every intelligent American."

— The New York Times

"In the field of literary autobiography, it stands practically alone in America."

— The Nation

"The pilgrim's progress of a man at once a genuine artist. . . and a small-town, pool-playing, story-telling Midwesterner."

— Sinclair Lewis