Books: Dark and Lonely

Last week in the Blue Ridge foothills at Marion, Va., a coffin was lowered into a grave. In it was the burly body and curious brain of Sherwood Anderson, paint manufacturer, ad writer, editor, short-story teller, novelist, poet, American. The grave had had to wait more than two weeks. Anderson died at Colon, Panama

Canal Zone, last month. He had sailed from Manhattan on the same ship with Playwright Thornton Wilder, who is on a cultural mission to Latin America. At sea Anderson fell ill, 48 hours later had to be carried ashore at...