It’s early 1945 in Port William, Kentucky. The war has been dragging on, but U.S. forces have survived the Battle of the Bulge. With a number of men involved in the fight in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, residents keep a close ear on the news.
Mat and Margaret Feltner receive a telegram. Their son Virgil is missing in action. That’s all that’s known. Virgil’s pregnant wife Hannah, who lives with the Feltners, gets the news at the same time. The not knowing is a kind of limbo state, and the family somehow has to come to terms with it. It will become even harder for Mat than it does for Hannah or Margaret.
The Feltner family is at the heart of A Place on Earth, the fifth of the Port William novels by Wendell Berry. First published in 1967 (with a new, edited version issued in 1983), the novel is in turn funny, tragic, moving, and exhilarating. It contains laugh-out-loud moments, and it has moments when you’re reaching for the tissues. It’s about family, fathers and sons, the land, community, and the people who are the community.
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| Wendell Berry as a young man |
Berry has created some memorable characters. Uncle Jack Beechum had me laughing with his stories about funerals at the church. Burley Coulter is the steadfast friend. Ernest Finley, wounded in World War I, is the carpenter who gives his heart. Mat is a man of nobility and steadfastness who begins to crack. Ida and Gideon Crop experience and struggle to overcome great tragedy. As individual as they are, they’re recognizable. They are people you know; some are you own kinfolk.
The author also shows himself capable of throwing a curve ball when you least expect it. And once it’s thrown, you realize just how right it is and how well it fits into the story.
Berry is a poet, novelist, essayist, environmentalist, and social critic. His fiction, both novels and stories, are centered in the area he calls Port William, Kentucky, on the Ohio River. He’s won a rather astounding number of awards, prizes, fellowships, and recognitions. He lives on a farm in Kentucky.
A Place on Earth is a profound story, one that changes you when you read it. It’s also one worth reading over and over again.
Related:
My review of Berry’s That Distant Land.
My review of Berry’s Jayber Crow.
Wendell Berry and This Day: Poems at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Wendell Berry and Terrapin: Poems at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Wendell Berry’s Our Only World.
The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry.
Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry.
Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry.
A World Lost by Wendell Berry.
Some Tuesday Readings
Slow to Grow – poem by Andrew Stevenson at Creative Ramblings.
The Vision of George Washington – poem by Monika Cooper at Society of Classical Poets.
The Greek City of Rome Before the Romans – Caleb Howells at Greek Reporter.
Sestina of Human Longing – poem by Katharine Whitcomb at Every Day Poems.
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