Publishers Weekly
09/12/2022
Berry (The Peace of Wild Things) offers more stories of Port William, Ky., and his frequent protagonist Andy Catlett in this expansive collection, tracing Port William’s transition from a relatively bucolic village in the 1930s to its present-day factory farms. “Time Out of Time” follows a young Andy as he spends an afternoon pursuing a squirrel through the branches of a giant tree—part of a forest that, the older Andy ruefully notes, will later be cut to the ground. “The Great Interruption” starts as a joke about a teenager in the 1930s falling out of a tree, thereby interrupting an illicit rendezvous, and then expands outward into a pensive consideration of the importance of storytelling in a community, and the impact of its loss. “Dismemberment” revolves around a more personal loss, when Andy, a 40-year-old farmer in 1974, loses his right hand to a harvesting machine and then, over the decades, comes to terms with the help of a close friend and others. Berry’s humanity and clear-eyed intelligence steer the stories away from simple nostalgia and into a thoughtful analysis of how communities inevitably change over time. This accomplished author still has much to offer. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
A BookPage Best Book of the Year
Southern Review of Books, A Best Book of November
"Wendell Berry is an American literary treasure . . . A misty melancholy hangs over every page of this novel. But Berry's powers as a writer render that heartbroken tone beautiful. Berry is a master craftsman in all literary genres. No extra word or shabby sentence mars his work. The reader pauses often to admire the crystalline precision of his writing . . . Let us hope we also can embrace Berry's quiet celebration in this work and others of how people can learn to get along when they share a community. Though he writes almost exclusively of times past, Berry is a powerful writer for our time." —Pamela Miller, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
"Berry’s powers as a writer render [the] heartbroken tone beautiful. Berry is a master craftsman in all literary genres. No extra word or shabby sentence mars his work. The reader pauses often to admire the crystalline precision of his writing." —Pamela Miller, The Daily News
"New stories like those in How It Went add context, depth, and breadth to Port William. They tell us, once again, the kinds of work we can do to help mend a hurt world. Go read them." —Ethan Mannon, Front Porch Republic
"Berry’s stories effortlessly portray characters who feel as real as they do distant—members of a bygone era, of a harder yet simpler time when things revolved around real life, not the abstractions of our modern age. Despite being in the past, they are not simply 'products of their times.' Berry is careful to construct his characters as close to real flesh and blood as possible, illustrating that the virtues of stability, community, and a life well lived are as desirable and possible today, in any town or city, as they were and are in Port William . . . With a mix of good humor and piercing insight into the human condition, Berry examines the inner life of Andy Catlett—and a great deal more. Never forceful, Berry makes his points nonetheless. Andy is learning to navigate the challenges of a changing world, some times with more grace than others. Along the way, we can learn something too." —Dr. Ryan Hanning, Hearth and Field
"This is a work of essential American literature." —Booklist (starred review)
"Lovingly written . . . Taken together, the 13 chapters in Wendell Berry’s How It Went create a tale that gently unwinds and doubles back on itself, not so much like a river but more like a flowering vine . . . Berry’s prose—in How It Went and just about everything else he’s written over his long career—is imbued with compassion . . . A book full of such gentleness, wisdom and humility seems preposterous in this day and age. It’s also something of a miracle. We are lucky, in such times, to still have a writer like Wendell Berry." —BookPage (starred review)
"Lyrical, immersive stories about work, neighbors, and the land . . . Berry has that gift for entertaining amid serious intent, and the many lighter, very human moments in his elegiac, cautionary, wistful stories keep them from sinking into jeremiad without diminishing his message. A fine collection by an enduring, endearing master." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Many profound lessons are found in these nostalgic pages . . . Followers of the author’s previous work will no doubt love this florilegium, but no doubt this anthology has something for everyone. A solid collection from a dependable author, for fans and nonfans alike." —Library Journal
"Berry’s humanity and clear-eyed intelligence steer the stories away from simple nostalgia and into a thoughtful analysis of how communities inevitably change over time. This accomplished author still has much to offer." —Publishers Weekly
Library Journal
10/28/2022
A boy bounds from limb to limb on a journey to catch a squirrel, an aged man supervises a fence repair with great disapproval, a hilarious recounting of a child uncovering a scandalous town secret; these and 10 other reminiscences compose the newest effort from Andy Catlett and the good citizens of Port William, as delivered to readers by prolific writer Berry. Spanning eight decades, these stories provide a glimpse into the rural and seemingly quiet lives of those that, perhaps, wish to lead what many might consider a simple life. And yet many profound lessons are found in these nostalgic pages. A look back at a life that has provided source material for many novels from Berry, this collection is composed of tales both short and snappy—the first 10 stories—as well as the dense and noteworthy—the final three seemingly longer and longer (though, certainly, none go on too long). Followers of the author's previous work will no doubt love this florilegium, but no doubt this anthology has something for everyone. VERDICT A solid collection from a dependable author, for fans and nonfans alike.—Joel D. Shoemaker
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2022-07-27
Simple, lyrical, immersive stories about work, neighbors, and the land.
Poet, fiction writer, essayist, and farmer: The 87-year-old Berry wears all those hats in these latest glimpses of Port William, the Kentucky community drawn from the town where he has lived for decades. The stories here span a period from the 1930s to 2021, and many feature a familiar Port William character and Berry alter ego named Andy Catlett at different points from boyhood to old age. In “A Conversation,” the boy learns about work and tools from hired hand Dick Watson. In the collection’s longest story, “A Time and Times and the Dividing of Time,” Andy at 84 sees through his own older and boyhood eyes that Dick’s work made him “more complete than almost everybody” Andy came to know. That regard for labor well done then stands out as woefully absent in “The Art of Loading Brush,” when elderly Andy hires men to replace a fence only to find that the crew had “messed and blundered its way to the completion” of something merely “passable.” The stories often touch on Berry’s longtime crusade for sustainable agriculture, on “the departure of the people and the coming of the machines” that inhibit such farming and erode the links, the “membership,” that help define a community. Berry also writes about the wit and usefulness of good stories. An episode (“The Great Interruption”) in which a boy falls from a tree while spying on an amorous couple is notable mainly for its retelling afterward by the area’s better yarn spinners until it becomes for Port William “a part of its self-knowledge.” Berry has that gift for entertaining amid serious intent, and the many lighter, very human moments in his elegiac, cautionary, wistful stories keep them from sinking into jeremiad without diminishing his message.
A fine collection by an enduring, endearing master.
