Wendell Berry has never been afraid to speak up for the dispossessed. The Need to Be Whole continues the work he began in The Hidden Wound (1970) and The Unsettling of America (1977), demanding a careful exploration of this hard, shared
truth: The wealth of the mighty few governing this nation has been built on the unpaid labor of others.
Without historical understanding of this practice of dispossession—the displacement of Native peoples, the destruction of both the land and land-based communities, ongoing racial division—we are doomed to continue industrialism’s
assault on both the natural world and every sacred American ideal. Berry writes, “To deal with so great a problem, the best idea may not be to go ahead in our present state of unhealth to more disease and more product development. It may
be that our proper first resort should be to history: to see if the truth we need to pursue might be behind us where we have ceased to look.” If there is hope for us, this is it: that we honestly face our past and move into a future guided by the
natural laws of affection. This book furthers Mr. Berry’s part in what is surely our country’s most vital conversation.
That Distant Land collects twenty-three stories, interlinked with each other and with the other published "Port William" novels. The stories, arranged in their fictional chronology (from 1888 to almost the present day), become one sustained work, a new novel that spans the entire life and time involved. The range of this book is extraordinary -- it offers rest for the weary, hope for the beleaguered, and strength for everyone else.
This, the first title in the Port William series, introduces the rural section of Kentucky with which novelist Wendell Berry has had a lifelong fascination. When young Nathan loses his grandfather, Berry guides readers through the process of Nathan's grief, endearing the reader to the simple humanity through which Nathan views the world. Echoing Berry's own strongly held beliefs, Nathan tells us that his grandfather's life "couldn't be divided from the days he'd spent at work in his fields." Berry has long been compared to Faulkner for his ability to erect entire communities in his fiction, and his heart and soul have always lived in Port William, Kentucky. In this eloquent novel about duty, community, and a sweeping love of the land, Berry gives readers a classic book that takes them to that storied place.
It is 1976 and Andy Catlett, farmer and agricultural journalist, is walking the streets of San Francisco at dawn. In the eight months since losing his right hand to a corn-picking machine, he has also lost himself. Two thousand miles from his home in Kentucky, he begins to remember people, the land, and the comfort of knowing his place intimately. Andy's reveries evoke a membership governed by the principles of humanity and love. Inspiring and eye-opening, Remembering follows Andy's journey out of darkness and into the warm light of community.
It is the summer of 1944, and nine-year-old Andy Catlett is engrossed in the wide easy countryside near Port William, Kentucky. But sadness, loss, and mystery invade Andy’s world on a hot July afternoon when his Uncle Andrew is murdered.
In the latest installment in Wendell Berry's long story about the citizens of Port William, Kentucky, readers learn of the Coulters' children, of the Feltners and Branches, and how survivors "live right on."
"Ignorant boys, killing each other,” is just about all Nathan Coulter would tell his wife about the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945. Life carried on for the community of Port William, Kentucky, as some boys returned from the war while the lives of others were mourned. In her seventies, Nathan’s wife, Hannah, now has time to tell of the years since the war.
Berry opens this latest installment of the Port William series with young Andy Catlett preparing to visit a place he’d been to many times before, though this would be an adventure he will take very seriously. Nine years old, Andy embarks on the trip by bus, alone for the first time. He decides it will be a rite of passage and his first step into manhood.
Sometimes a handful at home, Andy was a good boy when visiting his Grandparents’ houses, and he looked forward to the little spoiling certain to come his way. A beautiful short novel, this book is a perfect introduction into the whole world of Port William and will be as well a new chapter for those already familiar with this rich unfolding story.
The rhythms of this novel are the rhythms of the land. A Place on Earth resonates with variations played on themes of change; looping transitions from war into peace, winter into spring, browning flood destruction into greening fields, absence into presence, lost into found.
This brings the revised 1983 edition back into print, the next book in our program to put all of Wendell Berry's fiction into print in revised and corrected uniform editions.
From the simple setting of his own barber shop, Jayber Crow, orphan, seminarian, and native of Port William, recalls his life and the life of his community as it spends itself in the middle of the twentieth century.
Surrounded by his friends and neighbors, he is both participant and witness as the community attempts to transcend its own decline. And meanwhile Jayber learns the art of devotion and that a faithful love is its own reward.
Warning, this book contains strong or potentially offensive language.
In a rural Kentucky river town, “Old Jack” Beechum, a retired farmer, sees his life again through the shades of one burnished day in September 1952.
Bringing the earthiness of America’s past to mind, The Memory of Old Jack conveys the truth and integrity of the land and the people who live it. Through the eyes of one man can be seen the values Americans strive to recapture as we arrive at the next century.
This farmer, ecologist, and writer Berry speaks of enduring values, the wholeness of life, and the interdependence of all creatures (including humans). Berry’s self-discipline and ethical sense come through as he leads us from the microcosm of his Kentucky hill farm to the macrocosm of a sane and reasoned planetary vision based on personal integrity, faithfulness, and love.
