The Memory of Old Jack
by Wendell Berry
also by Wendell Berry ...
Two More Stories of the Port William Membership
Wendell Berry’s short fiction has recently won new admirers with such collections as Watch with Me,
Fidelity, and The Wild Birds. We see his appreciation for the oral traditions of storytelling in these two new stories of the “Port William Membership.”
“A Friend of Mine” follows Elton Penn as he works alone cutting tobacco, while the others house in a nearby barn. Most of the story is a meditation on work, its rhythm and strain. In the midst of work, Elton ruminates over his life and the life of the community of which he is so much apart [sic?]. Its elegiac tone is of a time that has passed, a rural life that is no more.
“The Inheritors” tells of an episode near the end of Wheeler Catlett’s life when he enlists Danny Branch to accompany him to a cattle sale at the stockyards in Louisville. With considerable luck they survive the trip.
—dust jacket, 1997 Gnomon Press edition
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