Jayber Crow A Novel

by Berry, Wendell

• ISBN13: 9781582431604
• ISBN10: 1582431604
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-08-30
• Publisher: Ingram Book Co

Summary

For thirty-nine years Wendell Berry has brought us stories from the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. The latest, Jayber Crow, is the story of a man's love for his community and his abiding and unrequited love for Mattie Chatham, a good woman who had too early made one bad mistake. Sent to an orphanage at the age of ten, Jayber grows up knowing of loneliness and want, and learns how to be a watchful observer of human goodness and frailty. With the flood of 1937 he returns to his native Port William to become the town's barber. Slowly, patiently, the observer becomes participant.This is a book about Heaven, writes Jayber, but I must say too that it has been a close call. For I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell-where we fail to love one another, where we hate and destroy one another for reasons abundantly provided or for righteousness' sake or for pleasure, where we destroy the things we need the most, where we see no hope and have no faith...where we must lose everything to know what we have had.Sounding themes of love and loss, despair and deepest joy, Berry's clear-sighted artistry in depicting the Port William membership will not soon be forgotten.

Author Biography

Wendell Berry is the author of fifty books of poetry, fiction, and essays. He was recently awarded the Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the Louis Bromfield Society Award. For over forty years he has lived and farmed with his wife, Tanya, in Kentucky.

Table of Contents

PART I
The Barber in Port William	3	(8)
Goforth	11	(4)
Squires Landing	15	(14)
The Good Shepherd	29	(11)
The Call	40	(6)
Pigeonville	46	(9)
The Great World	55	(20)
The Gathering Waters	75	(19)
Barber Horsefield's Successor	94	(15)
PART II
A Little Worter Dranking Party	109	(12)
An Invisible Web	121	(12)
The Gay Bird's Heel	133	(6)
A Period of Darkness	139	(12)
For Better, For Worse	151	(5)
The Beautiful Shore	156	(10)
Rose of San Antone	166	(10)
Forsaking All Others	176	(12)
Untold	188	(13)
A Gathering	201	(6)
How It Held Together Partly	207	(9)
Don't Send a Boy to Do a Man's Work	216	(14)
Born	230	(17)
PART III
The Way of Love	247	(14)
A Passage of Family Life	261	(12)
A Period of Disintegration	273	(10)
Finalities	283	(15)
A New Life	298	(13)
Branch	311	(9)
On the Edge	320	(14)
The Keith Place in the Way of the World	334	(10)
The Nest Egg	344	(10)
Seen Afar	354