Jayber Crow

This is a book about Heaven says Jayber Crow but I must say too that . . . I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell. It is 1932 and he has returned to his native Port William to become the town's barber. <p/>Orphaned at age ten Jayber Crow's acquaintance with loneliness and want have made him a patient observer of the human animal in both its goodness and frailty. <p/>He began his search as a pre-ministerial student at Pigeonville College. There freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a short conversation with Old Grit his profound professor of New Testament Greek. <p/>You have been given questions to which you cannot be <i>given</i> answers. You will have to live them out--perhaps a little at a time. <p/> And how long is that going to take? <p/> I don't know. As long as you live perhaps. <p/> That could be a long time. <p/> I will tell you a further mystery he said. It may take longer. <p/>Wendell Berry's clear-sighted depiction of humanity's gifts--love and loss joy and despair--is seen though his intimate knowledge of the Port William Membership.