# Laura James — Look Homeward, Angel character guide

> Laura James in Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Laura James, Laura, my beautiful Laura, Poor old Laura, Jim

**First appearance:** 0018-part-ii-xiv

## Snapshot

A young woman whose brief, tender romance with Eugene opens his heart to love and loss, and whose memory haunts him long after she is gone.

## Who they are

Laura James enters Eugene's life as a boarder at Dixieland, and their courtship is his first experience of romantic love, sweet and doomed from the start. She is gentle, vulnerable, and marked by a fragility that draws out both his tenderness and his fear of losing her. Her departure leaves a wound that colors his later relationships and deepens his sense of the world as a place of beauty and bereavement.

## Relationships

### [Eugene Gant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/look_homeward_angel_se/characters/eugene_gant)

_romantic_

Laura James is Eugene's first love, a beautiful and unattainable girl who represents his youthful romantic idealism and heartbreak.

### [Eugene Gant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/look_homeward_angel_se/characters/eugene_gant)

_romantic_

Laura James is Eugene's first love, a beautiful and unattainable girl who represents his youthful romantic idealism and heartbreak.

### [Eugene Gant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/look_homeward_angel_se/characters/eugene_gant)

_romantic_

Laura James is Eugene's first love, a beautiful and unattainable girl who represents his youthful romantic idealism and heartbreak.

## In the story

### [The Moonlit Vigil](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/look_homeward_angel_se/chapters/part-iii-xxx)

Laura shares a romantic moment with Eugene on the porch, agreeing to wait for him forever despite their age difference.

### [XXXIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/look_homeward_angel_se/chapters/part-iii-xxxiii)

Eugene is haunted by her memory; she is a married woman now, and he considers going after her.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/look_homeward_angel_se/characters/laura_james
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/look_homeward_angel_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/look_homeward_angel_se/characters