Warren's indebtedness to the tradiDion of the autobiographical novel is obvious. His own earlier fiction had dealt with the search for the father, which comprises the major theme of Tewksbury's life. And the fiction of other American writers, with their quarrel with their native towns and regions, looms large in A Place to Come To. Among Southern writers, Thomas Wolfe is a major precedent for this novel, for both the title and the story itself appear to be in part a commentary on Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again (1940).