This book of short stories is written by Wendell Berry, a philosopher, poet, and purveyor of human souls. If you have not ever read any of his work, you are missing something remarkable. This collection would be an excellent place to begin.

Pray Without Ceasing is the story of one friend killing another, a senseless murder and one that might destroy two families instead of just two men. But in the fictional, but very real, world of Port William, people overcome the baser side of themselves and the result is plaintively moving. Berry writes so purely and so beautifully that he can make me weep over a short story as if I had spent much more than a brief hour and sixty pages of reading.

”People sometimes talk of God’s love as if it’s a pleasant thing. But it’s terrible, in a way. Think of all it includes. It included Thad Coulter, drunk and mean and foolish, before he killed Mr. Feltner, and it included him afterward.”

Process that.

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A Jonquil for Mary Penn is another example of Berry’s ability to see beyond the surface and explore the depths of a person and their loves and insecurities. He might be the best at describing farm life and making you feel the blasts of cold and the joys of spring of any author I have ever read, for he captures in equal measure the isolation and the deep sense of community, and the personal joy of love.

At times she knew with a joyous ache that she completed him, just as she knew with the same joy that she needed him and he completed her. How beautiful a thing it was, she thought to be a half, to be completed by such another half. When had there ever been such a yearning of halves toward each other, such a longing, even in quarrels, to be whole? The wholeness came upon them as a rush of light around them and within them, so that she felt they must be shining in the dark.

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Making it Home is the return of the soldier from a foreign war, the unreality of finding home unchanged when the man has been changed irrevocably. There is nothing sad, but something very poignant about this story, and I finished it with tears swimming in my eyes and echoes of The Prodigal Son vibrating in my head.

Tell your Granny to set on another plate. For we have our own that was gone and is come again.

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Fidelity . I know why the book took the name of this story. It is the story that encapsulates all this book is about; the people, the place, the sense of belonging, the heart of friendship and family. Burley Coulter is dying, the same Burley Coulter we saw at fifteen on the day Thad Coulter shot Ben Feltner. He is a man who belongs to the natural world of Port William and to its people in a way that few others do.

Loving him, wanting to help him, they had given him over to “the best of modern medical care”--which meant, as they now saw, that they had abandoned him.

Too late, they realize that Burley should have been allowed to go back to the land, in his own place, among his own people. I particularly loved this story, because it is about not only letting go, but how we let go, and I think that is a dilemma that many of us struggle with in our lives, as we grapple with the machinery that keeps us alive past our usefulness or keeps us locked in a sterile room with limited visiting hours, instead of resting in our own bed surrounded by loved ones.

He has disappeared into his people and his place, not to be found in this world again forever.

That is an eulogy that any one of us could be proud of.

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Are You Alright? The final story is just a lovely vignette that ties up the book and puts it to rest. I think it is significant because everyone is alright, even those who are not, because they are in their places, surrounded by friends and family, understood and forgiven. They are fine, because they fit into a world that they love and that loves them right back. They have substance and someone who cares enough to brave the blackwater to see if they are alright.

I would like to say a thank you to openlibrary.org for making this work available to me at no charge. ( )

As with most Wendell Berry, this is a splendid work. Each of the five stories are beautifully wrought. A treasure. ( )

Explores the interconnectedness of the farmers and their families to one-another, their past and their land.

Quiet, homey stories. I might have liked this better if I had read any of the longer Port William books first. As it was, for some of the stories there wasn't enough background for me to fully enter into the relevance of the details.
"Fidelity" is the best, full of understated humor at how the locals put one over on the city detective, and also a valuable teaching in how far our current society has come from providing a good death for our elderly. "Making It Home" is forgettable, and seems so at odds with the current PTSD of so many of our returning vets. "A Jonquil for Mary Penn" drags on, tho I do like the way it ends. ( )

Lyrical. That's the word I use when I can't describe concise, simple, beautiful prose. I learned about Wendell Berry from a LT group about nature or the outdoors. He is not a nature writer, however. He is an agrarian, human-nature writer.

These family stories are all beautiful. "A Jonquil for Mary Penn" is one of the best stories I have ever read concerning, love, friendship, loyalty, teamwork, community. "Fidelity" may change my feelings that Tolstoy ("The Death of Ivan Ilyich", "Master and Man") wrote the best stories about death and dying.

Berry seems to be up there with Steinbeck, Delillo, Hemingway and McCarthy. I've hundreds of books on my TBR pile, from Aristotle to Zola. 'Looks like I'm going to add a few more from this wonderful Kentuckian. ( )