A World Lost

by Wendell Berry

Overview

In this, Wendell Berry’s fifth novel and ninth work of fiction, Andy Catlett revisits his own ninth year in the summer of 1944 when his beloved uncle is shot and killed by the surly and mysterious Carp Harmon. This is his Uncle Andrew, after whom the boy is named, someone who savored “company, talk, some kind of to-do, something to laugh at.”

Years later, still possessed by the story, Andy seeks to get to the bottom of all this, to understand the two men and their lethal connection.

“Berry deftly balances Andy’s investigation into the town’s past with an equally moving realization not only of the sustaining value of memory but of the manner in which they are shaped in enduring ways by what they love . . . a sharp portrait of a town nursing its secrets over decades.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781582434186
Publisher:	Counterpoint Press
Publication date:	05/28/2008
Series:	Port William
Pages:	112
Sales rank:	130,623
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

Table of Contents

Editorial Reviews

The 1944 murder of the young protagonist's uncle accompanies him into adulthood. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Berry's (Another Turn of the Crank, LJ 10/15/95) fans will enjoy this new novel, again set in Port William, Kentucky. This time the poet/essayist/novelist turns his attention to nine-year-old Andy Catlett, whose world is turned upside down in 1944, when his beloved Uncle Andrew is murdered. Still haunted by the event years later, Andy researches the seldom-discussed details in an effort to understand Uncle Andrew's fate. In doing so, he learns a great deal about his uncle, his family, his neighbors, and life in the late 1940s. This gentle tale deals with big issues: grief, love, truth, and lossand their effects on a young mind trying to grow. For all libraries.Ellen R. Cohen, Rockville, Md.

Library Journal

By the prolific poet, novelist, and social critic (Watch With Me, 1994; Fidelity, 1992, etc.), an elegiac celebration of the end of innocence.

Berry's fifth novel and ninth work of fiction is set, like most of his spare, exact work, in the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. Andy Catlett, the narrator, looks back from the present at the moment when his idyllic childhood came to an end, in the summer of 1944, when he was nine years old. His beloved Uncle Andrew, a man who savored "company, talk, some kind of to-do, something to laugh at" above everything, is shot down, for unclear reasons, by the surly Carp Harmon. It is the first time that death has touched someone Andy knows, and despite the gentle support of his extended family (few contemporary writers dwell as much, or as movingly, on the complex nature of familial love), life suddenly seems less certain and right. Years later, a still troubled Andy attempts to discover why Carp Harmon (who served only two years in a state prison for the crime) killed his uncle. He seeks out his uncle's old friends in Port William, and out of their vigorous talk a portrait of a close-knit, resourceful, modest community emerges, but no easy answers. Memories are hazy, the possibilities raised disturbing but unprovable. What does emerge, though, is a portrait of Uncle Andrew as a robust but troubled man, trapped in a suffocating marriage, uneasy in his responsibilities. Berry deftly balances Andy's investigation into the town's past with an equally moving portrait of his growing realization not only of the sustaining value of memory but of the manner in which people are shaped in enduring ways by what they love.

This is a modest, resonant work, both a sharp portrait of a small farming town nursing its secrets over several decades, and a penetrating celebration of the hold of family on the imagination.

Kirkus Reviews